Russia-Ukraine live updates: Ukraine braces for assault in east; Russian talk of civilian killings intercepted

Thousands of people fled eastern Ukraine, bracing for an intensified Russian assault, as the country’s political leaders appealed to NATO for more firepower.

The killings of civilians in Bucha, near the Ukrainian capital, are intensifying pressure on the military alliance as its foreign ministers met for a second day, European diplomats weighed a ban on Russian coal, and the United Nations General Assembly will take a vote Thursday on expelling Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service claims to have intercepted radio communications in which Russian soldiers discuss indiscriminate killings in Ukraine. In two separate communications, Russian soldiers described how they question soldiers as well as civilians, and proceed to shoot them, according to an intelligence official familiar with the findings who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

The findings, confirmed to The Washington Post by three people briefed on the information, undermine claims by Russia that atrocities — including in Bucha — are being carried out only after its soldiers leave occupied areas. The Washington Post saw beheaded and mutilated corpses in Bucha, bringing the scope of devastation into grim focus.

NATO members have agreed to “further strengthen and sustain our support to Ukraine” and provide a “wide range of different weapons systems” as Russian attacks continue, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a briefing on Thursday after a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers.

Before Stoltenberg made his remarks, Ukraine’s foreign minister again pushed for NATO to more quickly provide more weaponry as the country continues to defend against Russian forces. Asked about those requests, Stoltenberg said NATO members agreed that “allies should do more and are ready to do more to provide more equipment, and they realize and recognize the urgency.”

Stoltenberg would not specify the kinds of systems NATO allies are providing but said they “are providing a wide range of different weapons systems, both Soviet-era systems but also modern equipment.”

He noted that NATO is preparing for a “long haul” and that it is working to “manage the risk of escalation, and also to send a clear message that we are there to defend and protect all allies — not to provoke a conflict but to prevent a conflict.”

Stoltenberg added: “This war may last for weeks but also months and possibly also for years, and, therefore, we need to prepare for a long haul.”

BERLIN — Two former German officials said Thursday they have filed a 140-page criminal complaint with German prosecutors in the hope of opening a war-crimes case against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At a news conference, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Gerhart Baum, both former federal government ministers and members of the liberal Free Democratic Party, announced their intent to use every judicial instrument available to hold those responsible for atrocities in Ukraine to account.

“Like so many in our country, we asked ourselves, ‘What can we do?'” said Baum, 89.

The office of the German federal prosecutor had previously announced last month that it was initiating an investigation into possible Russian war crimes. The move is significant since grave acts such as war crimes or crimes against humanity committed in other countries can be prosecuted in Germany under the principle of “universal jurisdiction” enshrined in German law.

At the beginning of this year, a Syrian intelligence officer was convicted of crimes against humanity by a German court in the world’s first trial related to state-sponsored torture under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, 70, who was first appointed as justice minister in the 1990s and again in former chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, said at Thursday’s news conference, “Germany is a beacon in relation to international law.”

An attorney for the complainants said it may be possible to prosecute Putin for disturbing peace, since his orders not only endanger Ukrainians but also Russian soldiers. He noted that it was a Soviet prosecutor who “introduced crimes against the peace” into the proceedings of the Nuremberg trials after World War II.

The U.S. Commerce Department is bringing new enforcement actions against three Russian airlines — Aeroflot, Azur Air and Utair — designed to cut them off from spare parts and degrade their ability to fly over time, officials said Thursday.

The new orders, which the Commerce Department called “unprecedented,” represent the first export control enforcement action in response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The Commerce Department has already banned U.S.-made jets from flying into Russia or Belarusian airspace, but several Russian airlines have been taking passengers anyway. On March 18 the Commerce Department took the extraordinary step of publicly identifying the specific jets it says are flying in violation of U.S. law.

The measures announced Thursday morning extend to the myriad businesses that supply spare parts and maintenance to U.S.-made aircraft. They apply for 180 days and can be extended beyond that.

These airlines “will over time largely be unable to continue flying either internationally or domestically,” said Matthew Axelrod, assistant secretary for export enforcement with the Commerce Department.

The goal is to slowly starve Russia’s aviation sectors, preventing them from buying parts from U.S.-made companies, or U.S.-origin items held in inventory by other countries, U.S. officials said.

“We are cutting off not only their ability to access items from the United States but also re-exports of U.S.-origin items from abroad,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in a news release.

Ukraine’s foreign minister had strong words for NATO leaders Thursday, asking “how many Buchas” have to take place before they impose stronger sanctions.

“How many children, women, men have to die — innocent lives have to be lost?” Dmytro Kuleba asked.

He criticized Western leaders for stepping up sanctions “only after seeing images of Bucha,” the Kyiv suburb where the bodies of civilians were left in the streets or in mass graves — in some cases, showing signs of torture — after Russian troops retreated.

Several nations, including the United States, have stepped up sanctions in recent days after images of the Bucha killings surfaced, sparking global outrage. The European Commission is weighing a ban on Russian coal — but not oil or natural gas — as part of a new package of sanctions.

“The damage that is being inflicted on Russia by sanctions now has mid- and long-term implications,” Kuleba said. “But people are dying today.”

He added that as long as the West continues buying Russian gas and oil, that means “supporting Ukraine with one hand” and the “Russian oil machine” with the other.

“[The] Bucha massacre is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “Mariupol is much, much worse on all accounts.” The southern port city has been besieged for weeks by Russian forces, its remaining inhabitants — estimated to number more than 100,000 — largely cut off from supplies of food, water and electricity.

A report from Amnesty International published Thursday contains testimony from people in Ukraine who say they witnessed Russian forces executing civilians near the capital, Kyiv, in what the global human rights nonprofit called “apparent war crimes” that must be investigated.

The testimonies, collected by Amnesty investigators on the ground in villages and towns near Kyiv, including Bucha, Vorzel, Hostomel and Bohdanivka, reveal “that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality,” said Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, in the report.

“These deaths must be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be prosecuted, including up the chain of command,” Callamard said.

In one particularly shocking testimony, a woman told Amnesty that two Russian soldiers killed her husband and “repeatedly raped her at gunpoint while her young son hid in a boiler room nearby.” The woman and her son were later able to escape their village east of Kyiv, Amnesty said.

Other witnesses told Amnesty that they saw or heard of Russian armed forces shooting unarmed civilians — in one case, while the person was looking over a fence, in another, for not having cigarettes.

Many Western governments have called for an independent investigation into possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine, and the United Nations General Assembly will vote Thursday on whether to expel Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Russia has denied targeting civilians and claimed, without presenting evidence, that images of atrocities in Bucha were staged.

Facebook said Thursday it has disrupted several covert influence operations targeting Ukrainians as the company intensifies its fight against campaigns seeking to influence public opinion about the war.

Facebook disclosed the campaigns in a 27-page report, which cited efforts to falsely report Ukrainian users as breaking the rules and attempts to hack into the accounts of Ukrainian military personnel.

“We continue to see operations from Belarus and Russia-linked actors target platforms across the Internet,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head os security policy, said during a call with reporters. “We know that determined adversaries like this will keep trying to come back.”

Ukraine has presented a new draft of an agreement with Russia, which Russia views as a deviation from an understanding reached last week in Istanbul, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday.

“Ukraine has submitted its draft of an agreement with Russia to the negotiating group, which obviously deviates from key provisions recorded at the meeting in Istanbul on March 29. What is more, they have been recorded in a document signed by Ukrainian delegation head [David] Arakhamia,” Lavrov told reporters.

Ukraine’s new proposals suggest the possibility of holding military exercises on its territory with the part