ah ah ah, news live from berlin. more evidence comes to light of the devastation left behind by russian troops after their withdraw from northern ukraine. the small town of weak, if i saw intense fighting between russian and ukrainian forces. our correspondence spoke to residence about their ordeal under russian occupation. also coming up to nato foreign ministers gather for a 2nd day in brussels. ukraine's top diplomat is also there. he is very clear about what he expects from the allies. my agenda is very simple. it has only 3 items on

it. it's weapons, weapons, and weapons. ah, i'm gather as well come to the program. well, leaders half condemned a growing evidence of war crimes committed by russian forces in ukraine. authorities are still trying to identify hundreds of victims off atrocities in the town of bootstrap. outside the capital chief, as russian troops withdraw from the north of the country, locals are coming out of hiding and taking stock after nearly a month under russian occupation. dw is correspondence. nick connelly visited the small town of brick if which found itself in the middle of intense fighting between russian and ukrainian forces. from late february onwards, he spoke to residence,

struggling to make sense of what happened to them. this is be given. a small town that's just emerging from a month and a russian occupation month in which it was on the front lines between russian and ukrainian forces. toys was sometimes just the words people were children. it's as much as many residents of this ukrainian town could think of a plea to the russian troops to leave them and their families alone, as they hid in their homes of the figure. but the thing new people in this village spent 27 days without water on the 27 days without bread. we grew up. when you i paula ladyman, his wife held out for 3 weeks until the shelling became too much to bear. and they were finally able to leave for a neighbouring village of them up when they got back of the cranium, military had retaken the town, their home would be ransacked by retreating russian troops, applesauce in the they've got it. everything carried everything out. all that's

laughter. the walls and the sofa a sucker. he, unless you, they've taken all the electronics. i don't even know where they put it all over the months they were here, the russians really changed for the worse. i am just disgusted at the thought that they were moving around and eating in my house. at least he didn't sleep here with the full doesn't look dilute. relo to puberty. goodness girl. they just destroyed things for the sake of it, him that he'll never believe in it. but the impact on this community goes far beyond limited homes, locals to this, they were kidnapped and detained in sellers for days on end. accused by the russians of helping the ukrainian military, several residents is still missing. fit killed, a priest arrives the neighboring village when supplies for those who have lost almost everything. yeah. but it's not food or money that the locals are asking for . that us, who am i and what does a local put the people here need?

tranquilizers many of them have lost every single v that they spent a lifetime saving for wallace. with this, with their houses brought their cars. it's all gone into separate from what you both shows as the damp seller where she her husband and her neighbors spent some of the coldest nights in the year. you know, we took donation. i agree of linda. we weren't just hearing the shelling, we could feel it. everything was shaking really, really all we could do is pray that it wouldn't hit us. we just kept praying. supplies like these people above and husband going during the weeks and occupation were for the shop stayed shut and leaving home would have meant running a gauntlet or was it that he has got off by the time you've been up and down these steps a few times you lose the well to do anything else to both tells us she and every one she knows is exhausted till washington was waiting for something they can't quite define unable to ever let go. oh, nice thing. he said,

we didn't use to understand what it was that people and on boss had been going through all these years stuck in their salary. last month has taught us what war is his name, sister becky. for now, the russian army has been pushed back more than a 100 kilometers, but the fear they might return suddenly, as they appeared, is never far away. well, did i be a curse on it next? calmly file that report and now joins us from the ukrainian capital t. nick, you saw been to several town surrounding keith in the wake of the russian withdrawal. and you've interviewed numerous eye witnesses of what have you pieced together about how russian forces are fighting this war? i think the overarching impression is one of chaos. in that town we just saw in the report, the locals told us that most of the russian soldiers didn't know one another. they were from various different regiments, various different pots, the russian army, and after encountering a much stiffer resistance from the ukrainians, than they expected. they'd suffered heavy losses and had re groups in a celtic fashion, often enough,

seemingly not knowing who their commander should be, not knowing where their food was meant to come from. not knowing what the plans were with any kind of advance warning, a sense that the russian command is keeping its own soldiers very poorly informed. they're just busy living in a bubble, often without any mobile phone connection. they've had their own mobile phones. taken off the before they entered ukraine, and indeed there are stories of them taking phones off ukrainians. sometimes that's to stop. the ukranian civilians may be pasco information to the ukraine army, but also it seems because often they just want to get in touch with her and families to contact their wives, their families back home in russia. and those are calls that are now being tapped by the ukranian authorities. and we're seeing lots of white apps on youtube now. see, some of them might be a falsifications might be part of the kind of normal propaganda that goes on during war from the ukrainian side blossom to sound pretty convincing. and there is talk of looting, talk of, even sometimes you hear these white apps where russian soldiers,

what we believe to be russian soldiers asked their wives. they have read spec home, what they would like them to take from the ukrainian homes that they have access to . we seem images of russian soldiers in bella root, which is the logistics hub for the operation. this part of ukraine taking huge quantities of stuff, hundreds of kilos in some cases, to the post office and sending it back home to russia, a washing machine such as in being sent call batteries, tv computers, all that kind of stuff. and we've even had reports now from germany today from the german secret services that they have recordings. where are the russian soldiers are talking about her sibling casualties in ukraine, about their interactions with the civilians? here they're a shooting of civilians here. that does seem to back up the accusations coming from the ukranian side and those subtler images. we've seen of civilians lying dead in the streets of butcher for days and weeks before the russian army had to leave that town. an aggression forces have now pulled back from those areas around cave where you are and are increasing pressure on the don bus region in the east of the

ukrainian government is urgent civilians to leave that part of the countries that have was certainly there are lots of trains heading west as they have been since the beginning of this war and the trains have kept running in spite of bombing in spite fact that trains have been hit in spite fact that a train staff have lost their lives getting civilians out. but it doesn't seem like the numbers are quite where they need to be. yet if we're going to talk about a large scale evacuation, i think the hard reality to grasp here is that most people are going to stay as long as they can and are only going to take these warnings really seriously. once they hear the shelling what they hear, the war on their doorstep, that's the case. that's been the case in recent weeks where people basically have just consistently left when it's too late. when it's ready, very dangerous to go. we saw people leaving butcher to pin losing their lives, getting over bridges that have been destroyed and being wounded in shelling. i'm so as fear here that people just don't really want to believe that war is possible on

their doorstep. going into this war there. all those warnings come out of washington coming out of western intelligence. the russia was planning an invasion for real estate. this wasn't just fostering. and all those weeks we were in those border regions, asking people about their plans, what the contingency plans were, how they felt about this. and basic everyone would tell you that this was just a bluff. they didn't want to believe that this was possible. they didn't want to be aware of quite avenue, but they were, and people were just focusing on their daily lives until they had another no other option, but to choose between a risky flight from where they are or staying put me come to their order from keith or thinking and joining us now for more on their stories. you williamson, he's the director of the europe and central asia division and human rights force. you give us an idea of what is needed in terms of investigation, evidence witness, testament testament is in so on in bringing a prosecution for alleged war crimes to trial. thanks for having me. yeah,

i mean, a variety of sorts of evidence is needed on the high quality witness testimony from all survivors of alleged crime forensic evidence, very important to ukraine investigation in boca, for instance, at the moment. no have in both forensic expert is going to the e. u. in the us sent those experts to ukraine. no, but you need to be looking at open source material as well videos and photos and verifying those materials really were made where the video maker said they were made. so these sorts of things coming together and, and being seen through the legal framework of the law of war, the geneva conventions, which defined how parties behave in war conditions. now, earlier today we heard from a counsel to the international criminal court at the hague. if he suggested that n g o n journalist or reporting on this was

a good country view to witness fatigue before the case comes to trial. what's your take on that? as an interesting perspective, we hear that sometimes from our legal experts, we see our role as gathering evidence as quickly as possible, but meticulously as possible and not producing and not creating witness petite. we are very, very careful when we're interacting with witnesses, not to reach wilma ties them to ensure they have social medical, psychological support. so we think civil society organizations have a, have a role to play alongside, obviously the official investigators. now, could there be grounds for crimes against humanity or genocide as president zalinski is alleging or crunching against humanity is a broad term and war crimes fall within that. genocide is a very specific term used for an intended eradication of a hold or part of a group. in this case,

probably the ukrainian population. we don't think we're there yet. the evidence is not there. so that's why we think it's important to focus on what is evidently there, the widespread war crimes that human rights watch and others have been identifying cluster bones attacks on civilians execution and rank by, by russian soldiers. but also abuses by the ukrainian side. just mentioned that you published 2 reports about abuses of pronounced prisoners of war, russian prisoners of war by ukraine. now, the international criminal court has already opened an investigation, but russia is not a member of that organization. or could we see other countries trying the crimes that have been committed in ukraine under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction? certainly, we encourage all the countries to do so well in germany. we encourage germany to assume investigation that it's announced in principle universal jurisdiction as an incredibly important legal tool tool enables

a company traditional system to bring to court people incremental serious crimes such as will crime outside their jo restriction. we saw it effective in the syrian cave in last year, and in january. so we think it's an important tool that could be used more she williams in there of human rights watch. thank you very much. thanks me. ukraine's foreign minister demitra caliber has called on the west to provide more weapons as he arrived in brussels for a meeting with nato foreign ministers. he criticized the german government for its lack of military support, saying, belin has time. the key of dozens, nato has ruled out imposing a no fly zone over ukraine, over fears of escalating the conflict of member countries are supplying artillery and other weapons to assist with ukraine's defensive. we

just have some time for some other stores. we are following for you on the war and ukraine. since their invasion of ukraine, russian forces have attacked more than 100 medical facies. world health organization says more hospitals and health care has been attacked around the globe this year than ever recorded. un body is call in on the military to avoid such targets. taking us president joe biden has accused russia brutality and inhumanity and announced whose actually seen her in the wake of the atrocities biden as also spoken of warcraft ages, measures drawn up by russian by washington target russian bags and individuals fighting during the grown up daughters of rushes president vladimir, who during rush you want you leaders, meanwhile, a pushy to cut off a russian coal imports. they also considering an embargo in orland gas. the block is preparing to implement the 5th run of sanctions against moscow. britain is also drawing up a time table to n, it's russian energy input, select evidence,

and test. and that's it from me and the new senior, and by then don't go way up. next is business with chris cope up on when be can always get all the latest news business, not sports, all websites. it's d, w dot com gab alphas, invalid for me on the new steve with with what does war do to people? are hatred and violence inherited from generation to generation and award winning documentary searches for answers for 2 years. the author accompanies a sophist, family.