South Korean parliamentary delegation visits Ukraine to asses atrocities by Russian troops

On the 103rd day of the brutal Russian war in Ukraine, a parliamentary delegation from South Korea paid an official visit to the Kyiv region. Particularly, the team went to Bucha and Irpin to assess the atrocities "committed by invaders on a sovereign land." The group was headed by Lee Jun-seok, the chief of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) in the Republic of Korea (ROK), said the head of Kyiv regional military administration Oleksiy Kuleba.

"Today, the parliamentary delegation of the Republic of Korea headed by Lee Jung-seok ...paid an official visit to the Kyiv region," Kuleba said.

The South Korean delegates assessed the "graves of tortured civilians" in Bucha and looked around the destroyed residential neighborhoods in Irpin, he added. The visitors extended a "comprehensive support" on their brief arrival in Ukraine, Kuleba wrote in a Telegram post.

This is the first such trip from South Korea after Yoon Suk-yeol was elected President last month. The team from Seoul also noted areas of cooperation and joint projects within the framework of reconstruction in the Kyiv region, Kuleba said. The visit comes shortly after the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink on June 4 accompanied Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova on a trip to Borodyanka, which experienced a civilian massacre at par with Bucha and Irpin.

What happened in Bucha and Borodyanka?

Satellite images from nearly two weeks before the Russian retreat from Bucha confirmed mass killings in the region. Photographs from March 19 showed swathes of dead bodies lying on both sides of the streets. Regional police claimed to have discovered at least 500 bodies unearthed in a field in the region. International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who visited the Kyiv suburb of Bucha shortly after the bodies were discovered called Ukraine "a crime scene". He added, "We’re here because we have reasonable grounds to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC are being committed. We have to pierce the fog of war to get to the truth."

However, Russia has categorically denied accusations that Russian forces were behind the alleged "genocide" in Bucha. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that the images circulated by state-back propagandists were "fake." Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also claimed that the chronology of the incidents and the pictures that emerged were not "in sync." On facing sweeping condemnation, Peskov urged international leaders "not to rush with accusations and at least listen to arguments."

A similar instance was observed in Borodyanka after Russian troops indiscriminately pounded the region with missiles in early April. Kyiv feared that the civilian massacre in Borodyanka was "worse than Bucha." Venediktova had claimed that the situation in the urban settlement located in the Kyiv Oblast was "worst in terms of victims."

(Image: @OleksiyKuleba/Telegram)