Russian troops reportedly attacked a tank containing nitric acid in Ukraine’s Luhansk region on Tuesday, warning residents in a panic to protect their faces and stay indoors.
Serhiy Gaidai, the head of Luhansk’s regional government, released a video address warning residents that toxic fumes could cause “serious harm”.
“Make protective face masks soaked in soda solution. When applied topically to the eyes, nitric acid causes severe damage with extensive necrosis of the cornea and conjunctiva, leading to vision loss,” he said, urging those who live near Rubizhne to stay indoors. to stay and close their windows.
“This chemical is very toxic and we don’t know where the toxic cloud will go. We will monitor the sky and wait for rain,” he said.
The alarming warning came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky prepared to address the United Nations Security Council over mounting evidence of Russian war crimes committed against Ukraine.
In comments to Ukrainian media, Zelensky promised that Ukrainian authorities would create an “internal mechanism” to track down the Russian soldiers accused of war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, just as Israel’s Mossad was hunting Nazi refugees around the world.
“We will certainly address this,” he said, adding that “lists will be compiled” of all those Russians accused of executing and torturing Ukrainian civilians. “There are people who really want to find these criminals,” he said.
“Prosecutors from different countries will deal with all these crimes… They see a lot of evidence. And unfortunately, the proof will only keep coming – there will be no less. There is still Izyum ahead, and many places where there is still no access [for Ukrainian authorities]– occupied Melitopol, Berdyansk – we have no idea what happened there,” he said.
His comments came as the scale of Russian atrocities in the city of Bucha, a suburb of Kiev, rocked the world, with hundreds of innocent residents killed in the streets, some with signs of torture. Newly released satellite images of the now-liberated city showed that the bodies of massacred civilians had littered the streets for weeks before Ukrainian forces recaptured Russia’s territory, disproving Moscow’s blatant claim that Putin’s forces had “not seen any civilians there.” ” and that they must have been Ukrainian troops.
The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed that the executions were “staged” by Ukrainian psy-ops specialists, a claim echoed in a full-blown propaganda campaign on Russian state television that said Western intelligence agencies were behind the killings.
In light of those Russian denials on Tuesday, Ukrainian media released aerial video who is reportedly imprisoning Russian troops in Bucha firing directly at a man who was simply riding past them on a bicycle.
Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Komarov also shared images from Bucha showing the aftermath of the Russian attacks on Ukrainian evacuees. He said at least three civilian vehicles were found shot down along an evacuation route, including a bus carrying a young couple and a vehicle in which an elderly couple was killed.
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