Germany says it will expel 40 Russian diplomats after Bucha atrocities
- Germany is expelling a number of Russian diplomats from the country.
- Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called images from Bucha "unbearable."
Germany said it will expel a significant number of Russian diplomats following the atrocities in Bucha, Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said.
Baerbock, in a tweet, did not specify how many diplomats would be expelled, but the Associated Press reported the number to be 40.
Baerbock said the images coming out of Bucha "testify to a will to annihilate that transcends all borders."
She added that more actions against Russia will follow.
"We will further tighten the existing sanctions against Russia, decisively increase our support to the Ukrainian armed forces, and also strengthen the eastern flank of NATO," she said in a tweet.
The foreign minister called the photos from Bucha "unbearable," and said those responsible for war crimes must be held accountable.
"Putin's rampant violence is wiping out innocent families and knows no bounds," she said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who visited Bucha on Monday, explicitly accused Russia of genocide over the apparent atrocities in Bucha.
Meanwhile, the Russian government has pushed conspiracy theories about Bucha, claiming that the images were faked or staged while denying that it was involved in the massacre.
Experts have said it would take years to build a case against Russian President Vladimir Putin and he would be unlikely to ever face justice for war crimes, as Insider's Ashley Collman previously reported.
Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday called on the International Criminal Court to visit Bucha "to collect all the evidence of these war crimes."
Neither Russia nor Ukraine are members of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but Ukraine has "accepted the court's jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed on its territory since November 2013, and in so doing, the obligation to cooperate with the court," per Human Rights Watch.