or efforts in the don bass region ukraine is urging people to evacuate while they still can. russian forces are pouring into eastern ukraine and devastating offensives are expected. the kremlin pulled back from around keith after its military objective to take the capitol failed. but the slaughter of innocent civilians and surrounding areas is becoming more and more evident. the gruesome killings in the town of boucher have ignited another round of sanctions from the west and its allies. i am abby qual dawson and this is the day. ah, the ripping images from boucher have left us all deeply shaken, boxed whole nation have to come together all these perpetrators accountable, the perpetrators must pay. we have to be serious with our sanctions. we're going to keep raising the economic cost. this may last for a long time,

for many months or even years. it must be our goal that russia does not win this war. also on the day, a severe economic crisis, a rob into a political one to as people in sri lanka demand the resignation of their president . i welcome to the program. after 4 weeks under russian occupation, the world is now gradually finding out the scale of the horrors inflicted on the town of boucher grim evidence of killings and torture has emerged since russian troops retreated bodies in civilian clothing lying in the streets and piled up in mass graves, those who survived are telling their stories. dw alexandra phenomena has travelled

to boucher to hear 1st hand what people have experienced. a warning the following report contains disturbing images on the road to boucher burnt out tanks and car wreck ski the foreboding of the horrors. the small town has lived through in a center of butcher. residents came together like every day hoping for humanitarian help to life. food is scarce. here, they say. many seemed deeply traumatize, while a demeanor and his mother told me they saw their friends and neighbors to taint and killed by rational forces. couldn't you sigmoid, you saw that they took him a march 7 and as it turned out he was shot him dead. a day later took a donya to closely. we found his body only after they retreated. and when actually it that the what yellows we found his body with his fingers broken their policy and a shot to the head that they prefer it in the hollow. a yes, the kicker to little people were buried in the back yard still are in the forest

dumbly sousa cornelia here in butcher russian soldier stent, accused of terrible war crimes. witnesses speak of summary executions of civilians killed at will the ukraine and government is urging international experts to come to woodshop to investigate the allegations. they hope that what happened here will be a turning point in the international response to the war. at the ever and of butcher forensic scientists arrived at the spec yards to pick up the bodies of sick civilians discovered their recently authority say they were not held by and bombard messiah, but shall dat, and then set on fire ye. unlike only be score with me, shoot in a war, all the soldiers kill soldiers janna out watching it to the hotel. they been trained to her door. yeah. and are ready to die for their beliefs and ideals. idiology bottled, whoops. where'd all through

a killing civilians. how's it pro fish are yet. i've almost unanimously sit in 3 color but show feel the rush government dismissed the allegations as stage anti ration propaganda. but the evidence is mounting even though it full investigation could take time. time consuming is also the clearing of minds and booby traps placed into town. ukrainians. troops told us in bookshop, then you miss there was as you can see yourself, there are many different types of military hardware here that can explode and threaten the lives of civilians. over so we're working on it which us till has a long way to go before life can get anywhere near back to normal. and the killings and future have come to light after russian forces withdrew from the area. and russia has pulled back because it says it's moving on to a new phase of the war to focus on the regions of daniel can lugens, part of that territory has been held by pro russian separatists since 2014. the

ukrainian military also says the kremlin is preparing a new offensive. there was no new lucila. water was also the main efforts of the enemy of focused on preparing for an offensive operation. the purpose of which is to establish full control over the territory of the nets. can lew hans grievance broke over his body. harker says, orders are the threats of the use of c. n on land base misses by the enemy continues to persist in remo was a y o go bonkers of the occupies, or targeting or defense if installations logistics, infrastructure and residential areas of cities with what followed me for more. lots bring and john spencer, he's a retired u. s. army major, an expert on urban warfare. he joins us from colorado springs and mr. spencer, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. let's start with what is coming to light out of boucher. what do you make of the killings of civilians there? yeah, to be frank. i'm still shaken from what i'm seeing there. i mean,

i've been in war of study war. don't let somebody tell you. this is just what happens in war. i don't even think war crimes. i know me. it is war crimes under the law of war that truly russian doesn't fall, but this type of intimate killing the tying of civilians hands bind their back and shoot him in the head as an old soldier. i know that's a very intimate evil and not a rogue unit. like, so don't let people tell you. this is just what happens is russia does. this is genocide. and that's what ukranian officials have been saying, and they are concerned that we're going to be hearing more of such atrocities and other areas. let's move on to the military aspect of this war. now the russian military, one of the largest on earth, they have the numbers, but what kind of challenges have they faced when it comes to urban warfare? so they've been taught the less the most of that known for a long time is that and the defender has the advantage. if you don't have the capability to rapidly get into urban areas before you, they start defending it,

then you'll pay a giant price or just fail. that's what russia did to be clear and key. they failed to achieve their objective, which is rapidly get into key and take out the government. so they try to pull a couple different plans to do that. they're not capable of doing any of them to another re focusing on trying to achieve a different objective just so they can say there one something talk to us about that main military objective on february 24th moscow's goal was to take eve quickly as you said, that would have been their goal, they thought they could do it in 3 days. it hasn't happened. we're about to enter the 7th week of the war. now, why were they not able to take the capital? right, well i mean, clearly they weren't capable because they're not the big army that we thought they were as in that the other big in numbers but not capable. so he's failed to, to get there to get into position, to even hold like the air field that we saw in hostile mill. and then once they failed every day that the chron is, didn't lose their winning and preparing to defend. so putting up blocks and

barricade and road blocks to stop from sneaking into the city. and there is a credible military force, so it wasn't just all ukrainian susan's, but it was the combined power of the ukrainian military in the territory advanced. the civilian start blocking, taking out the bridges, attacking anybody who's trying to get into position, which we saw that as, as it went on as a really we didn't see an urban fight. like what were seen a miracle that i study as much. because they, they prevented, they closed the gates as the analogy i use, they closed again to keep continued to contest the air, which to be frank, is still vital to their survival. it was vital to their survival in key had they not been able to contest the airs and prevent the russians from moving around in firing helicopter missiles and doing all that you can do from the air. so that's

where they they, they closed the gates to the castle, the fortress. that is, keep the political seat. what's the russian strategy now? when they say that they're going to focus on the don bass. yeah, their strategy now is to take these defeated, her broken apart. hi kaz. the units on some of them will be pulled back into russia and bell roofs and try to be refitted and then are the moving some directly over to the done boss right. where, where there's been a worked even before 2014 for the eastern part of ukraine. they completely given up all what they entered the war to do. and now they're going to try to encircle the horses that are in the boston land. asked don, ask an either overtake them or just encircle them and say, okay, this is ours. even though there's people inside of it trying to get any type of a when out of their failed miserably inept military operation,

illegal invasion into ukraine. major, we can't talk about russia's military failures in ukraine without talking about ukrainian resistance. you said very early on in his full scale invasion that ukraine has a real chance militarily, despite being outnumbered and outgunned. what is your assessment now? yeah, i see, i still think is true. i mean, yeah, it, we're in a very dangerous situation, right. so if the russian somehow pull off, right, so really in all more you want the, your enemy to make more mistakes than you do and you capitalize on those. but they still don't have the thing that we know is the most critical thing. and worse not the size of your military. it's not even the weapons, it's the will to fight in your soldiers. the morale motivation in cohesion and russians didn't ever have that. they believe in what they were doing in their cause . i mean, clearly some of them have evil in their minds and in created your cause. great horrors. but the ukrainian military in the citizens that are fighting along with

them and the terror told events have what we know is vital in a battle like this. so there is no certainties on what's going to happen because even if the ukrainians were al numbered and so he's location, they're not to be clear. they've been fighting for a long time in the dumbass. and those are some of the strongest ukrainian military forces that ukraine has, but they have with the russians don't, which is the will to fight in even the citizen look at mary opal. that's amazing that they're still fighting, still, holding now after weeks of siege and no water, no food, no, nothing. john spencer and urban warfare specialist with the madison policy forum. thank you very much for your time and for your insights. thank you. ah. the united states has announced a new round of sanctions against russia for what it calls war crimes in ukraine, the main targets or russian banks. but the measures are also aimed at former

russian president dmitri mad va death and members of president vladimir putin. se family u. s. president joe biden described the measures as devastating and the white house as more measures are in the pipeline. the european union is also toughening its sanctions against russia in response to killing of civilians in boucher these pipelines are russia's lifeline, delivering gas and oil from siberia to europe. russia is earned a 1000000000 euros a day by supplying energy to the e. u. since the start of the war, ukraine's president is called for a stop to all energy payments to russia, to drain putin's war chest, a message under consideration of the european parliament in strasburg. the u. s. provides us with at least additional 15000000000 cubic meters of ellen g gas this year. this gives us the opportunity to replace the russian, ellen g this year. second, for the coming years, we're aiming for at least an additional 50000000000 cubic meters annually. this

will give us the opportunity to replace at least one 3rd of the russian pipeline gas arriving in europe. on tuesday, ursula funder lion proposed an impulse ban on coal worth 4000000000 euros a year cement, wood and vodka from russia also on the new sanctions list. but the eas 27 member states have yet to vote on the measures. the e. u. currently receives almost half of its leak night and heart call from russia, which it needs for steal and electricity production. though supplies would need to come from elsewhere, such as the usa, columbia, and south africa. the dependence on russian gas is similarly high. 45 percent of the use gas comes from russia is far harder to replace than coal. so far, germany has stood in the way of a complete gas shut off, claiming the economic impact on europe would be far too high rejoined by an ashburn who's a senior fellow at the atlantic council. welcome to the program. now if the goal of

sanctions is to force vladimir putin to withdraw from ukraine, has the west and its allies been pressing the right buttons? i think for the most part we've been pressing the right buttons that were able to press. the sanctions have been levied on russia, including the ones today, are probably not going to cause russia to withdraw the r, dialing up the economic pain on the kremlin and the r, exacting some cost. and hopefully that will make the russians think about the invasion. think about whether it's worth continuing and about whether they might be more open to negotiations. that's really the goal here. talk to us about the same trends that particularly target individuals. you mentioned the sanctions that we saw come down today targeting putin's adult daughters, for example. and we've seen in the past, no, russian politicians, oligarchs have been targeted as well. those people who are the closest to vladimir putin. what kind of impact does this have particularly on his inner circle?

is it enough? we seen basically a continuation of the trends that we have been seeing and sanctions policy. that is people close to the russian leadership. you know, just today we saw a former president meeting and it was sanctioned putin's 2 daughters to, to legitimate known daughters happen sanctions. today, it's a family members of the russian meets, which is often how to hide their assets. again, this is probably not going to completely alter the calculus of the russian government, but it will raise the team level on those decision makers and hopefully not them in a more productive direction. now we did not see energy sanctions today. that is something that is notable because i think those are the one remaining big step that could take. but as the report before this noted the payment to european economies from doing that would just be such the policy makers have so far decided not to go down that road of talk about that

a little bit further. we know about the european countries, particularly germany, outlining the pain that it would feel, should it go ahead with a full gas embargo talk to us about how that embargo would harm vladimir putin and the russian economy. so in some ways it's actually a bad deal on both sides, right? so the russian government derives a lot of revenue from gas exports, but it derives most of its revenues from oil imports. where as the european governments, in many cases, particularly germany, are heavily relying on those gas exports. so if europe was to cut off all russian gas imports, it would certainly hurt the kremlin, but it would not take away that main source of hard cash, which is oil exports. so i think again that the german leadership is correct when they say they're cutting off the gas. it works to europe in sort of a sudden way rather than a long term reorientation would hurt europe more than it would hurt russia. we're

seeing staggered sanctions and that's what we've been seeing since this full scale invasion began. is this really the best approach? ukraine has been calling repeatedly for everything in the kitchen sink to be thrown at russia right away. why wait? at this point we really have thrown pretty much everything except energy at russia . i think you know, portraying this as sort of small step by step sanctions is, is not really an accurate picture. the. the economic sanctions that have now been placed on russia are not comparable to sanctions that we placed on any other country. in the last 30 years. we're talking about a level of sanctions that haven't been seen since the period between world war one, world war 2. so in terms of economic pain, again, energy is the one thing that remains on the table. there are reasons why it's not being considered. we've gone about as far as we can with the economic sanctions pass. sanctions, as we know, are always effective. can you walk us through how the kremlin has used western

sanctions to their advantage inside russia? with regard to propaganda, for example? so previous friends of sanctions have in some way, not always backfired, but they have provided the kremlin with a way to excuse the poor performance. the russian economy. so that in 2014, when sanctions were levied in relation to the russian asia crimea, the sanctions hit the same time global oil prices collapsed. but the kremlin was able to quite effectively spin this home to a domestic audience in russia as the west is causing this economic payments. so this is a pattern that we've seen over and over, not just in russia, but in other countries. the sanctions sometimes backfire. again, i should say, the situation that we're seeing with russia now is relatively unique in that it is just this extremely harsh set of sanctions, much closer to a blockade of russian banks than anything that we seen in other countries. in

recent years, ukraine wants more though, does the west have any other realistic options to pressure vladimir putin? western countries, particularly the u. s, have effectively drawn a line at arming ukraine and using tools of economic coercion. and i, i think this is the right line. this is the place where we minimize the risks of escalating to a broader regional and nuclear war with russia. we're still helping the koreans, as much as we can to resist the russian invasion. the problem is, you know, it sort of the cupboard is getting a little bare so we can maintain the level of economic pressure and political pressure. we can maintain the flows of weapons that we're doing. increases however, are more difficult because there's not that much left to give there. sure of actual military action. and so, you know, i think what we're going to see is settling into a period of more sort of consistent long term pressure rather than ratcheting up.

we've been seeing ashford and international security and u. s. foreign policy analyst and a specialist on russia. thank you very much. thanks for having me. ah, sri lanka is facing the worst financial crisis in its history. the economic hardships have ignited a political crisis to as protesters take to the streets demanding the resignation of president golda by a raj, epoxy and his government. but raja boxes and members of his powerful political family are refusing to step down. people have been struggling to get the basics like food medicine and fuel. some observers say the poorest in society may soon face starvation. years of government mismanagement and corruption are at the heart of the current crisis. troops patrol the streets outside the parliament in colombo, lockdown after unprecedented street demonstrations against sri lanka as president

go to buy a raja boxer once. while the popular, his approval ratings have been undermined by people's anger at ramp and inflation as well as food fuel and medicine shortages. the coven pandemic destroyed tree like as tourism industry, leading to a lack of foreign exchange for imports. let me get it. what again the ebay, but i'm going, i started a small business recently and emily, but it's very difficult to maintain it. there's no gas, there's no kerosene demand. that's why people are protesting in the street. them that i need to class, bella, it is that the abbey is the road. people are suffering a lot. they reached the end of their patience. one can't say how the people will behave, what decision they'll take. it never go to buy a roger baxa is backed by sri lanka, is powerful sinaloa buddhist majority who credit him with ending the 26 year long civil war. in 2009. the protest threaten one of the most powerful asian political

dynasties. in 2020 my hinder roger pox. i one elections to become sri lanka, as prime minister serving under his brother and president go to buyer in 2021. another sibling basil was named finance minister tightening the family's grip on power. demonstrators accused the president of mismanaging sri lanka, most painful downturn since independence from britain. in 1948, the protests began last month, but have intensified in the past few days. due to classes between protestors and police, in some instances i

roger pack so revoked to state of emergency after dozens of lawmakers walked out of the ruling coalition. but the troops remain on the streets. there is no certain way out of true, lank is worth political crisis for decades. more than 40 members of the sri lankan legislature quit the government this week, but the president is refusing to resign. so to what extent israel anchor representative democracy as opposed to a single family state, we put that question to and the guys that going another of the human rights commission of sri lanka. many of the people who are governing coalition has said that the left governing position, that they are going to function in parliament as independent. but we still don't know whether when it comes to certain issues that they want the government, in which case probably why that is why the opposition is also afraid to test it

with a no confidence motion and the opposition is also plain. what it seems, a waiting game, for instance, yesterday they made a decision that today and tomorrow they would be there in parliament where they can only cross is the at the point. we know it's going to be meltdown. i'm in a month or 2 that will be a crisis. and only thing on the activity can possibly shut down. but yet i think even the opposition is not putting forward a plan. they are not testing on that. they're being reluctant to take responsibility. so what is being proposed is also what kathy government, but that also brings it to play on a constitutional question. the question you asked about, you know, democracy. the fact is, this was in a sense, like total democracy, i would say, i mean it, it back is all the electoral, a tory carrion it's,

i mean back to election, someone is government. that routine is authoritarian and it's also functions more. it's a family and it functions through dispensing patronage. that was the day and as ever the conversation continues online. you'll find us on twitter. i dw news, i'm abby qual awesome for all of us here at dw news, thanks for being with us. bye for now. ah ah,

with ah enter the conflicts own with sarah kelly. the world has been confronted with horrific images of atrocities against civilians allegedly committed by russian forces in ukraine. we can find the courage, men, paul, good genocide. how should western allies respond? my guess i'm complex in foreign minister gabriella land baggage. he joins the on the line with on deal with

a mom is pulling the plug. there's nothing you can do about it. a mysterious illness, m e. s, as it affects millions of people around the world. there is no cure, no treatment, no medication. the people being left behind and the crew reality of living with emmy cfs. in 45 minutes on d w. o. so did and right wing extremists, i suggested again world might be and coping weight and burned in south africa. people with disabilities more likely to lose their jobs. in the pandemic black lives matter, shine a spotlight on racially motivated police violence, same sex marriage is being legalized in more and more countries,

discrimination and inequality, or part of everyday life. for many, we ask why? because life is diversity. to make up your own mind. d w. lead for mines with the world has been confronted with horrific images of atrocity as against civilians allegedly committed by russian forces in ukraine. we can find a courage and then qualitative genocide because there's so much resemblance of the events of 20th century. how should western allies respond? my guest on conflict zone is lithuanian, foreign minister, gabriela, lance bagus. he joins me on the line from bill nina, who to nisan, which is more than just one person, if it stays. that means that this country, well be ready.