Healey vows he would ‘take Putin into custody for war crimes’
The British Defence Secretary John Healey revealed that if he could kidnap a world leader it would be Vladimir Putin.
During a visit to Kyiv, Ukraine on Friday Healey told the Kyiv Independent that he would “take Putin into custody and hold him account for war crimes.”
Healey was taken to a high-rise residential building which is one of thousands of sites that has been hit by Russian drones.
The much respected British Defence Secretary said the war crimes include “what I saw in Bucha on one of my first visits to Ukraine,” including “the abduction of some of the Ukrainian kids that I met in Irpin.
In 2022 mass graves were found in Bucha which is the site were many innocent Ukrainians were tortured, raped and murdered by Russian troops, it is one of many places where war crimes were committed.
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It has been documented that more than 1,400 civilians were murdered in the Bucha district and 637 were killed in Bucha, including 37 children, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.
In March 2023 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the illegal kidnapping of Ukrainian civilians and hundreds of children, which is another war crime.
Standing outside a damaged building Healey said, “tells you all you need to know about President Putin and his determination not just to wage a war on Ukraine, but to target civilians, cities, the infrastructure that people absolutely critically depend on in the middle of winter.”
“This is a man [Putin] must be stopped. This is a war that must be stopped. And our mission is to support Ukraine in its fight today and to help work to secure the peace for the moment,” he added.
Following the brutal Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital on Friday morning, the Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko is urging residents to leave the city.
Kyiv has around four million residents and has had multiple attacks since the war started on 24 February 2022.
There has been a grim warning that over the coming days a there could be a “potentially significant air attack that may occur at any time.”
Klitschko said on Friday, “We are doing everything we can to resolve this as quickly as possible. However, the combined attack on Kyiv last night was the most devastating for the capital’s critical infrastructure.”
He added, “I appeal to the residents of the capital, who have the opportunity to temporarily leave the city for places where there are alternative sources of power and heat, to do so.”
