Ottawa to summon Russia’s ambassador over Bucha killings, Joly says

Oleg V. Stepanov, Russia’s ambassador to Canada, was previously summoned in Ottawa on Feb. 24 – the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Ottawa will summon Russia’s ambassador over the reported massacre of civilians Kyiv’s suburbs, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says.

Joly told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday that the ambassador will be shown photos of what happened in the Ukrainian capital’s outskirts.

“Canada is very seized with what happened over the weekend, like mentioned. I’ve instructed my deputy minister to summon the Russian ambassador in Ottawa to make sure he is presented with the images of what happened in Irpin and Bucha,” Joly said.

“There’s a level of inhumanity in what we’ve seen in Bucha.”

Oleg V. Stepanov, Russia’s ambassador to Canada, was previously summoned on Feb. 24 – the day Russia invaded Ukraine. Joly used the opportunity to directly express her condemnation of the war.

World leaders have expressed outrage over the discoveries of what appears to be murdered civilians in Kyiv’s suburbs, which Ukrainian forces re-entered over the weekend following Russian occupation.

In Bucha — a town of roughly 35,000 — Ukrainian troops and journalists saw bodies of what appeared to be civilians in the streets, some with evidence suggesting they were killed at close range.

Taras Shapravskyi, deputy mayor of Bucha, has said 50 of some 300 bodies found were the victims of extra-judicial killings carried out by the Russians.