Irish Government pushes for tougher sanctions against Russia

Micheal Martin said that “nothing can be ruled out” in its response to the “appalling and barbaric” crimes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine.

He said that every “conceivable” pressure has to be put on Russia to stop the war and the attack on humanity.

“I would rule nothing out in terms of how we respond, and I think Europe is repulsed by this,” Mr Martin said in Dublin on Monday.

“We have seen this before, we didn’t think we would see it again.

“There is no justification for this war and without question, from my perspective, the Russian Federation and Putin has put himself beyond the pale.”

There has been international condemnation about other atrocities, including possible mass executions carried out by Russian forces as areas around the capital, Kyiv, returned to Ukrainian control.

“We would support further sanctions given the appalling and barbaric crimes committed by Russian Federation troops in Ukraine, particularly in Kyiv and Bucha and other towns, where we see innocent civilians murdered, with their hands tied behind their backs,” Mr Martin added.

“We can’t be blind in the first instance to the appalling human trauma and death that is being visited on the people of Ukraine and every conceivable pressure that we can has to be put on Russia, to stop this war and stop this attack on humanity.”

Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney said he spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba about the atrocities uncovered in recent days.

Mr Coveney said he believes a war crime has been committed in Bucha and called for the incident to be investigated by the International Criminal Court.

“(Mr Kuleba) was quite graphic in terms of his description of what he’d seen and witnessed in Bucha, which is a town on the outskirts of Kyiv, where civilians have have been slaughtered, tortured, and in some cases, raped before being killed.

“It was a very sobering conversation, with pretty shocking accounts of brutality and what I think can only be described as war crimes.”

He said that the Ukrainian minister has called on the European Union to increase its sanctions against Russia.

“I said I would support him in that,” Mr Coveney added.

“Ireland has been one of the countries that has been pushing for strong sanctions, a fifth package of sanctions and I hope we’ll see that this week, which will include the targeting of energy goods, and also increasing the number of Russian individuals that are on sanctions list, as well as targeting further Russian banks in terms of removing them from the Swift money transfer system.

“I think we can also look at issues around access to ports and so on. So these are the kind of real and practical next steps that can be taken by the EU, of course there’s a price to that.

“The alternative to that is to add somewhat to the sanctions that are already in place, but not to do the kind of fundamental changes that I think Ukraine is now asking for in response to the gruesome discoveries.”

He said the current sanctions were not stopping Russia’s war in Ukraine.

It has also emerged that the Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yuriy Filatov, has been invited to attend Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to the joint Houses of the Oireachtas this week.

Mr Coveney said it is for Mr Filatov to decide whether to attend, adding it is important to keep communication lines open with Moscow.

In a statement, Mr Filatov rejected reports of Russian troops killing civilians, claiming there “are no facts to prove such allegations”.

“To the contrary, according to the Ministry of Defence of Russia, its military units have left Bucha on March 30 and there has not been a single incident of violence against the people Bucha during their stay in it,” Mr Filatov said.

“The reports of the “massacre” appeared four days later, after Ukrainian forces have moved into Bucha.

“There are numerous independent assessments of these reports, which indicate its staged nature. That in itself should be a subject of a discussion at the highest political level internationally.

“In the current political circumstances, judging by the simultaneous public statements by the EU and US officials made right at the moment of the release of the anti-Russian allegations in favour of imposing new sanctions against Russia, we are clearly witnessing yet another stage in the disinformation war against Russia.”