US President Joe Biden for the first time accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday of carrying out a "
genocide
" in Ukraine, a word hitherto used by Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky but never by the American administration.
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Read alsoMassacres in Boutcha: can we speak of "genocide" in Ukraine?
“
Yes, I called it genocide
,” Joe Biden told reporters during a trip to Iowa, hours after mentioning the term during a speech on the fight against inflation.
"
It is increasingly clear that Putin is simply trying to erase the very idea of being able to be a Ukrainian
", developed the American president.
If “
the lawyers, at the international level
”, will decide on the qualification of genocide, “
for me, it looks like it
”, he assured.
Claiming that the "
evidence was mounting
" regarding the "
horrific things the Russians did in Ukraine
", the Democrat predicted that the world would "
find out even more about the devastation
".
The Ukrainian president praised on Twitter the "
true words of a true leader
", because "
calling things by their name is essential to oppose evil
", while calling for "
urgently more heavy weapons
".
Scenes of "
massacres
"
On the ground, the situation continues to deteriorate.
Between 20 and 22,000 people died in the city of Mariupol, said Pavlo Kirilenko, Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, in an interview with the American television channel CNN on Tuesday.
He admitted that it was however "
difficult to mention a number of victims
", the city being the subject of a blockade.
The city, besieged, has been cut off from the world and bombarded for more than 40 days.
Taking Mariupol would allow the Russians to consolidate their territorial gains on the coastal strip along the Sea of Azov by connecting the Donbass region to Crimea.
The existence of a vast metallurgical complex transformed into a bastion by the Ukrainian forces of Mariupol, with kilometers of underground, promises a fierce battle for the total control of this strategic city, even the use of chemical weapons, envisaged by the separatists Donbass prowess.
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According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, "
Russian forces could use different riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents
" against "
Ukrainian fighters and civilians
" in Mariupol.
For Moscow, "
the threat of chemical terrorism
" comes from the Ukrainians, assured Oleg Syromolotov, Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the Ria Novosti press agency.
Since Russia announced the withdrawal of its forces from the kyiv region - to better concentrate them in the east of the country - the Ukrainians have regained control of all the towns located near the capital.
All have been devastated by the fighting.
Scenes of "
massacre
" took place there, assure the Ukrainian authorities who accuse Moscow of "
war crimes
".
On Tuesday, the body of the mayor of Gostomel, who died on March 7, was exhumed in front of Ukrainian investigators, as part of an investigation to determine whether Yuri Prylipko was the victim of a war crime.
His body was hoisted from its grave, and the police filmed each of his wounds, including one to the head, according to AFP journalists present on the spot.
“
Major losses
”
Around kyiv, the bodies of six people killed by bullets found in a basement in the eastern suburbs, according to the Ukrainian General Prosecutor's Office, were added on Tuesday to hundreds of others found in the past two weeks in the vicinity of the capital.
No recent assessment of civilian casualties is available but it probably exceeds tens of thousands of dead.
The many corpses found in early April in Boutcha, near kyiv, had provoked international indignation.
Vladimir Putin, whose country denies any abuse in Ukraine, on Tuesday described as "
fake
" the information accusing his soldiers of having massacred hundreds of civilians in Boutcha.
On the military front, the Kremlin recently admitted “
significant losses
”, but without quantifying them.
At the end of March, Moscow had recognized the death of 1,351 soldiers for 3,825 wounded, the first figures for more than three weeks.