Simmone Shah, Olivia B. Waxman, and Julia Zorthian 11
emerged voicing new pledges of sup-
port for Zelensky, promising more
than a billion dollars in military aid
from the E.U. alone.
“You stand here today and see what
happened,” Zelensky told reporters on
a visit to Bucha on April 4, days after
the Russians withdrew. “We know
that thousands of people have been
killed and tortured,” he added, “with
extremities cut off, women raped,children killed.” Less than a week
later, at least 50 more Ukrainians—
nearly all of them women, children,
and the elderly—were slain in a rocket
attack against a train station in Krama-
torsk, where they had gone to flee the
country’s eastern regions, the focus of
the war’s next phase.
David Arakhamia, the lead Ukrai-
nian negotiator in talks with Moscow,
says Bucha made it difficult to face theenvoys of Russian President Vladimir
Putin. “We wanted to stop the process
altogether,” he told me. “We wanted
revenge, not diplomacy.” But Zelensky
urged the team to carry on, “even if
there is only a 1% chance of peace after
Bucha,” says the negotiator, who has
continued holding talks with the Rus-
sians almost every day.
At the same time, investigators
have fanned out across the country