KYIV, Apr 07 (AP/BBC): Ukraine told residents of its industrial heartland to leave while they still can and urged Western nations to send "weapons, weapons, weapons" Thursday after Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup for an offensive in the country's east.
Russia's six-week-old invasion failed to take Ukraine's capital quickly and achieve what Western countries say was President Vladimir Putin's initial aim of ousting the Ukrainian government. Russia's focus is now on the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine.
In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged NATO to provide more weapons for his war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities like those reported on Kyiv's northern outskirts.
Ukrainian authorities are working to identify hundreds of bodies they say were found in Bucha and other towns after Russian troops withdrew and to document what they say were war crimes.
"My agenda is very simple… it's weapons, weapons and weapons," Kuleba said as he arrived at NATO headquarters for talks with the military organization's foreign ministers.
Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk areas as independent states. Military analysts have said Putin also could be seeking to expand into government-controlled territory.
Russian forces used civilians
as human shields
Russian troops used villagers in northern Ukraine as human shields to try to protect themselves from a counter-attack from Ukrainian forces, the BBC has been told.
Our correspondent Jeremy Bowen has been visiting communities north of Kyiv that have, until recently, been occupied by Russian forces.
Villagers from Obukhovychi, just south of the exclusion zone around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, told him that on the night of 14 March Russian soldiers were losing men and armoured vehicles to a counter-attack from Ukrainian forces.
Russian troops then went door-to door to round up about 150 people at gunpoint and held them in a freezing cold school gym as protection for Russian forces, villagers said.
Ukraine-Hungary rift escalates
over Russian sanctions
The Ukrainian government has accused Hungary of helping Russia continue its aggression against Ukraine, amid a worsening row between the neighbouring countries.
The Ministry of Foreign affairs also accused Hungary of strengthening Russia's "sense of impunity" over alleged war crimes committed.
Oleg Nikolenko, spokesman for Ukraine's foreign ministry, tweets that Hungary's "reluctance to acknowledge Russia's responsibility for atrocities" also encourages them to "commit new crimes".
"A proposal to hold peace talks in Budapest seems cynical. If Hungary wants to help, it must stop damaging EU unity," he says.
Prime Minister Victor Orban - who has long been an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin despite Hungary's Nato membership - was re-elected earlier this week.