US to seek Russia’s suspension from UN Human Rights Council

The United States plans to seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council following apparent evidence of mass executions by Russian troops in Bucha, Ukraine, US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Monday.

“The images out of Bucha and devastation across Ukraine require us to now match our words with action,” Greenfield said in a tweet.

“We cannot let a member state that is subverting every principle we hold dear to continue to participate” in the council, she said.

“Russia should not have a position of authority in that body, nor should we allow Russia to use its seat on the Council as a tool of propaganda to suggest they have a legitimate concern about human rights.”

Independent international journalists over the weekend found corpses in civilian clothes, some with their hands bound, in the town of Bucha outside Ukraine’s capital after Kyiv’s forces retook it from Russia’s army.

The scale of the killings is still being pieced together, but Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova said 410 civilian bodies had been recovered so far.

The UN’s human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the images from Bucha point to “possible war crimes.”

The Kremlin denied Russian forces killed civilians, and alleged that the images of dead bodies in Bucha are “fakes.”