WASHINGTON, April 3, 2022 (AFP) – In an interview to be screened in the US this Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russian troops are committing “genocide” in Ukraine.

“This is genocide. The extermination of the entire nation and people,” Zelensky told CBS’s Face the Nation, according to a transcript released by the network a day after new evidence of atrocities committed by the troops was released. , a city retaken by Ukrainian forces.

“We are citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. It’s about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities,” Zelensky said. Said.

Three days after the invasion began on February 24, Ukraine filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice in The Hague accusing Russia of “planning acts of genocide”.

The interview will air on Sunday, a day after images of civilian corpses scattered on the streets of the town of Bucha, near Kyiv, were released.

Bucha Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said 280 bodies were buried in mass graves in the city.

According to the CBS transcript, Zelensky said, “We are citizens of Ukraine and we do not want to submit to the policy of the Russian Federation. That is why we are being destroyed and destroyed.”

“And this is happening in 21st century Europe. It is the torture of an entire nation,” he added.

Images and reports of civilian deaths in Bucha sparked criticism from the international community and threats of further sanctions against Moscow.

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