Vladimir Putin goads Western leaders by repeating claims Russian war crimes are 'fake'

Vladimir Putin has taunted Western leaders in his first public appearance in over a week and repeated false claims that evidence of war crimes in Ukraine was fake.

Speaking at the Vostochny Cosmodrome - 3,500 miles east of Moscow - alongside Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Russian President also signalled he has no intention of bringing the war to an end any time soon.

He dismissed the impact of devastating sanctions imposed on Moscow by Western countries, which has sparked warnings Russia is heading for its worst economic recession since the end of the Cold War.

"That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting did not work," he said. "The United States is ready to fight with Russia until the last Ukrainian - that is the way it is."

Continuing to taunt the West, he said that inflation and rising food and petrol prices in Western countries would start to put pressure on politicians there.

Watch: Putin defends 'noble' aims of Ukraine invasion

Addressing the war in public for the first time since his troops were pushed back from Kyiv, Putin insisted he had no doubt Russia would achieve its “noble aims”.

He accused Kyiv of derailing peace talks by staging what he said were fake claims of Russian war crimes and by demanding security guarantees to cover the whole of Ukraine.

Russia's defence ministry has previously accused the United States of directing Ukraine's government to sow false evidence of Russian violence against civilians despite footage showing dead bodies lying in the street after Russian troops had pulled back from Bucha.

Putin said he had told Western leaders to think a little about the destruction by the US of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State caliphate, and in Afghanistan.

"Have you seen how this Syrian city was turned to rubble by American aircraft? Corpses lay in the ruins for months decomposing," Putin said. "Nobody cared. No one even noticed.

"There was no such silence when provocations were staged in Syria, when they portrayed the use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. Then it turned out that it was fake. It's the same kind of fake in Bucha.”

The alleged war crimes perpetrated by Russian troops has sparked global outrage. Ukrainian officials say hundreds of civilians have been found dead since the drawback of the invading force and that Russia is guilty of genocide.

US President Joe Biden has accused Putin of war crimes and called for him to stand trial.

Bucha’s mayor has said dozens were the victims of extra-judicial killings carried out by Russian troops.

On Thursday, human rights group Amnesty International published testimony detailing accounts of Russian forces executing Ukrainian civilians and repeatedly engaging in "unlawful violence".

Bucha's deputy mayor, Taras Shapravskyi, added that more than 360 civilians were killed on Friday, and around 260-280 were buried by other residents in a mass grave.

Read more: UK refuses to rule out 'direct Nato involvement' amid fears of chemical weapons attack in Ukraine

Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian parliament's human rights commissioner, said 25 women and girls, aged from 14 to 24, had called a helpline reporting they had been raped in Bucha.

On Monday, United Nations official Sima Bahous told the Security Council: "We are increasingly hearing of rape and sexual violence."

The mayor of the besieged city of Mariupol, Vadym Boychenko, has also given new details about claims Russian troops have burned the bodies of dead Ukrainians in mobile crematoriums.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said the government was checking unverified information that Russia may have used chemical weapons while besieging Mariupol.

Read more: Drone footage shows aftermath of Russian bombing in Mariupol as death toll 'hits 10,000'

Boris Johnson has said the Russian forces' actions in Ukraine appeared close to “genocide”.

On Saturday, the prime minister flew to Kyiv to pledge tighter sanctions on Russia and offer President Volodymyr Zelenskiy more defensive arms.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen added Russian forces appeared to have committed war crimes by targeting civilians in Ukraine but added lawyers must investigate the alleged incidents.

Leaving Ukraine after a visit, she added she had seen with her own eyes on Friday the destruction in the town of Bucha near Kyiv.

Preliminary international probes are already underway into allegations of war crimes.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says Putin's war has so far resulted in 1,626 confirmed civilian deaths and 2,267 injuries - but adds the actual figures will be "considerably higher".