Boris Johnson says Russia’s killings in Ukrainian town of Bucha don’t seem ‘far short of genocide’

• British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke out on Russia’s killings in the Ukrainian town of Bucha. 
• He said they don’t seem “far short of genocide” and vowed more sanctions against Russia are to come.
• At least 300 bodies of civilians have been found in Bucha, according to local officials. 

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday that the gruesome scenes of dead civilians that have emerged out of the Ukrainian town of Bucha don’t seem “far short of genocide” amid Russia’s war with Ukraine. 

“I’m afraid that when you look at what’s happening in Bucha, the revelations that we’re seeing from what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has done in Ukraine, which you know, doesn’t look far short of genocide to me, it is no wonder that people are responding in the way that they are,” Johnson told reporters. 

Johnson also vowed that there will be more sanctions against Russia to come over Putin’s six-week invasion of the eastern European country. 

“I have no doubt that the international community, Britain very much in the front rank, will be moving again in lockstep to impose more sanctions and more penalties on Vladimir Putin’s regime,” said Johnson. 

Bucha, on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, was recently reclaimed by Ukraine after being controlled by Russian forces for weeks. 

At least 300 civilians were killed there by Russian troops, local officials said as horrific videos and images of bodies strewn in the streets emerged.  

US President Joe Biden called for a war crimes trial against Putin following revelations of the civilian massacres in Bucha. 

The US also called for Russia to be suspended from the UN Human Rights Council for the atrocities. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of committing genocide in Ukraine. 

“While Bucha, Irpin and other our cities were under occupation, the corpses were laying just on the roads, on the roadsides, in the yards of houses – anywhere,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the Irish parliament on Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, the UN human rights office said on Wednesday that a recorded 1,563 civilians, including 63 children, had been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24. 

However, the UN human rights office said it believes the real death toll is “considerably higher.”