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'Russia must be held accountable': Morrison

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has today condemned reports of civilian massacres by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Mr Morrison said Russia must be held accountable for any war crimes after officials in Ukraine said the bodies of 410 civilians have been removed from Kyiv-area towns, including Bucha, that were recently retaken from Russian forces.

"Appalled by reports of atrocities against Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops in Bucha and other towns," Mr Morrison posted on Twitter.

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"The targeting of innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure are war crimes. Russia must and will be held accountable for the actions of its armed forces."

Ukraine's prosecutor-general, Iryna Venediktova, said on Facebook that the bodies were removed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. She said 140 of them have undergone examination by prosecutors and other specialists.

https://twitter.com/ScottMorrisonMP/status/1510753536975708164?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Labor Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong has also condemned the reported killings.

"Russia must be held to account for the horrific and sickening abuses in Bucha," Senator Wong tweeted.

"The targeting of innocent civilians here and elsewhere across Ukraine can only be described as war crimes."

In other developments, a resident says the mayor of the Ukrainian town of Motyzhyn, 50 kilometres west of Kyiv, was killed in an execution-style slaying along with her husband and son.

ANALYSIS: Putin is making the same mistakes that doomed Hitler: Analysis

A resident of the town told the the AP on Sunday that Russian troops targeted local officials in a bid to win them over and killed them if they did not collaborate. The man, Oleg, declined to give his full name for security reasons.

The mayor, Olga Sukhenko, and her family were shot and thrown into a pit in a forest behind a plot of land with three houses where Russian forces had slept. A fourth body was not yet identified.

The mayor and her family had been reported by others as kidnapped by Russians on March 23 and taken in an unknown direction.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Russia's attack on Ukranian civilians in towns on the outskirts of Kyiv "are yet more evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his army are committing war crimes in Ukraine".

Mr Johnson called the attacks in the towns of Irpin and Bucha "despicable" and says he "will do everything in my power to starve Putin's war machine." Mr Johnson added that the UK will step up its sanctions and military support for Ukraine, but did not provide details.

Other European leaders also condemned the reported attacks on Ukranian civilians in response to images of bodies in the streets and some of the dead with their hands tied behind their backs.

Leaders in France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Czech Republic and Poland expressed outrage at the images. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala called the images "horrifying" and says Russia has been committing war crimes.

Bodies had signs of torture: Ukraine

Ukraine's troops have found brutalised bodies with bound hands, gunshot wounds to the head and signs of torture after Russian soldiers withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv, authorities say.

Sunday's allegations sparked new calls for a war crimes investigation and sanctions against Russia.

Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city north-west of the capital, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range.

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At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. The AP also saw two bodies wrapped in plastic, bound with tape and thrown into a ditch.

Authorities said they were documenting evidence to add to their case for prosecuting Russian officials for war crimes. To convict, International Criminal Court prosecutors will need to show a pattern of atrocities committed against civilians during Russia's invasion.

Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said scores of civilians were found slain on the streets of Bucha and the Kyiv suburbs of Irpin and Hostomel in what looked like a "scene from a horror movie."

Some people were shot in the head and had their hands bound, and some bodies showed signs of torture, rape and burning, Arestovych said. Investigators at the International Criminal Court The torture and rape reports could not be independently verified.

READ MORE: Ukrainian troops retake areas north of Kyiv

Accusations of 'genocide', call for oil and gas ban

A day earlier, AP journalists witnessed Ukrainian soldiers gingerly removing at least six bodies from a street in Bucha with cables in case the Russians had booby-trapped corpses with explosives before their withdrawal.

Local residents said the dead people were civilians killed without provocation, a claim that could not be independently verified.

"What happened in Bucha and other suburbs of Kyiv can only be described as genocide," Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko told German newspaper Bild.

Cr Klitschko called on other nations to immediately end Russian gas imports, saying they were funding the killings.

"Not a penny should go to Russia anymore. That's bloody money used to slaughter people," the mayor said.

"The gas and oil embargo must come immediately."

Russian troops moved into Ukraine from three sides on February 24, and soldiers who entered from the north in Belarus spent weeks trying to clear a path to Kyiv.

Their advance stalled in the face of resolute defiance from Ukraine's defenders, and Moscow said this week it would concentrate the invasion elsewhere going forward.

Signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment: destroyed armoured vehicles from both armies lay in streets and fields along with scattered military gear.

The Ukrainian military said its troops continued to comb areas outside of the capital for mines, the dead and for any lingering Russian fighters.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, also called for tougher sanctions on Russia, including a complete energy embargo, over the discoveries north of Kyiv.

Mr Kuleba tweeted Sunday that the "Bucha massacre was deliberate," alleging the "Russians aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as they can."

European leaders condemn 'atrocities'

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, wrote on Twitter that he was shocked by the "haunting images of atrocities committed by Russian army" in the capital region.

https://twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1510542585454022660

The EU and non-governmental organisations were assisting in the effort to preserve evidence of war crimes, according to Mr Michel, who promised "further EU sanctions" against Russia.

The foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK separately condemned what was being described and said Russia would be held accountable.

"We will not allow Russia to cover up their involvement in these atrocities through cynical disinformation and will ensure that the reality of Russia's actions are brought to light," British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.

As Russia retreated from the capital, other parts of the country were under siege. Russia has said it is directing troops to eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eight years.

Mariupol, a south-eastern port located on the Sea of Azov, remained cut off from the rest of the country as Russian ground forces fought to occupy the city.

About 100,000 civilians — less than a quarter of the prewar population of 430,000 — are believed to be trapped there with little or no food, water, fuel and medicine,

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it hoped a team of nine staffers and three vehicles it sent on Saturday to help evacuate residents would reach Mariupol on Sunday

"The situation on the ground is volatile and subject to rapid changes," it cautioned.

Ukrainian authorities said Russia agreed days ago to allow safe passage from the city, which has been the site of some of the worst attacks and greatest suffering, but similar agreements have broken down repeatedly under continued shelling.

A supermarket parking lot in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has become the staging ground for tens of thousands of people fleeing Mariupol.

Peycheva Olena, who made it out of the besieged city, told Britain's Sky News she was forced to leave the body of her husband unburied when he was killed in shooting.

"There was shelling, and we tried to drag him away but it was too much, we couldn't do it," explained her daughter, Kristina Katrikova.

Northern city is 70 per cent destroyed

While the geography of the battlefield morphed, little changed for many Ukrainians on the 39th day of a war that has sent more than 4 million people fleeing the country as refugees and displaced millions more from their homes.

The mayor of Chernihiv, which also has been under attack for weeks, said Sunday that relentless Russian shelling has destroyed 70 per cent of the northern city.

Like in Mariupol, Chernihiv has been cut off from shipments of food and other supplies.

"People think how they can live until tomorrow," mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko said.

On Sunday morning, Russian forces launched missiles on the Black Sea port of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sending up clouds of dark smoke that veiled parts of the city.

The Russian military said the targets were an oil processing plant and fuel depots around Odesa, which is Ukraine's largest port and home to its navy.

"I live in that eight-floor building. At six in the morning, Russia launched an attack, and this piece of rock reached my house," said Maiesienko Ilia, who lives near one of the targeted facilities.

The Odesa city council said Ukraine's air defence shot down some missiles before they hit the city. Ukrainian military spokesman Vladyslav Nazarov said there were no casualties from the attack.

The regional governor in Kharkiv, said on Sunday that Russian artillery and tanks performed more than 20 strikes on Ukraine's second-largest city and its outskirts in the country's north-east over the past day.

The head of Ukraine's delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow's negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul this week, but no written confirmation has been provided.

The Ukrainian negotiator, Davyd Arakhamia said on Ukrainian TV that he hoped the proposal was developed enough so Mr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet to discuss it.

But the top Russian negotiator in talks with Ukraine, Vladimir Medinksy, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying it was too early to talk about a meeting between the two leaders.

As his country's troops retook territory north of the capital from the departing Russian troops, Mr Zelenskyy called on all Ukrainians to do whatever they could "to foil the enemy's tactics and weaken its capabilities".

"Peace will not be the result of any decisions the enemy makes somewhere in Moscow," he said late on Saturday.

"There is no need to entertain empty hopes that they will simply leave our land. We can only have peace by fighting."

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'Avalanche of rate rises' looming for Aussie borrowers

Experts are now predicting not one but an "avalanche of rate rises" from Australia's Reserve Bank that would cost the average borrower more than $3000 this year.

Several of the major banks have forecast a lift in the official cash rate – which remains at the historically low level of 0.1 per cent – from as early as June this year.

All lenders now believe that 2022 will feature not one but multiple rate hikes, to lift Australia's cash rate to around 1.5 per cent by the end of 2023.

READ MORE: Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians 'massacred' as mayor 'executed'

Graham Cooke, head of consumer research at Finder, said banks are well aware of the forecasts and are moving early to cover their margins.

"That's why banks have increased rates across over 400 fixed rate home loan products over the last week – some by up to 75 basis points," Mr Cooke said. "This indicates that they may be anticipating not one, but an avalanche of rate rises later in the year. The question is when, and that could be decided by international events."

Finder analysis shows that a 75 basis point increase would cost the average borrower $3,175 this year by raising repayments by $265 a month.

"Cash rate rises are like buses: they may take a while to come, then arrive one after another," Cooke said.

"Banks have already jumped ahead of the RBA and it looks like the opportunity to lock in a long, low rate for your home may have passed."

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Despite the gloomy outlook, Mr Cooke said it was always recommended to borrowers to mindful of what other rates are available in the market.

Your home loan is likely your biggest expense, so you need to be proactive about always getting the best deal you can.

"The difference between three per cent and two per cent doesn't sound like much, but it adds up to thousands of dollars a year by refinancing your mortgage," he advised.

"Even if you need to break your fixed contract, you'll likely save more than the cost of the break fee. "Plus, many lenders offer cashback up to $3,000 for refinancing – all the more reason to look into  it."

ANALYSIS: Putin is making the same mistakes that doomed Hitler

AMP Capital's Chief Economist Shane Oliver said the triggers for the RBA to raise interest rates were already in motion.

"The RBA's objective of full employment has been reached, wages growth is picking up and inflation is pushing well above target with a rising risk that inflation expectations will start to rise in which case it will become self-feeding, and the Budget will add in more stimulus this year," Mr Oliver said.

"So the conditions for a rate hike will be in place by June."

Australia's median property values*

Capital City:

Change in 2022:

Median Value:

Sydney

+ 0.3 per cent

$1,116,889

Melbourne

+ 0.1 per cent

$805,232

Brisbane

+ 6.4 per cent

$749,293

Adelaide

+ 5.7 per cent

$602,717

Perth

+ 1.9 per cent

$542,338

Hobart

+ 2.7 per cent

$731,849

Darwin

+ 1.7 per cent

$494,635

Canberra

+ 3.1 per cent

$932,704

National

+ 2.4 per cent

$738,975

 

*CoreLogic Hedonic Home Value Index. Results as at 31 March, 2022

The information provided on this website is general in nature only and does not constitute personal financial advice. The information has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information on this website you should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.

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Rebuilding flood-hit Lismore will take 'years'

The man in charge of leading Lismore's flood recovery has warned it will take "months and years" for the northern New South Wales community to bounce back.

Lismore and other towns in northern NSW have been rocked by two devastating floods in a month, twin disasters which Northern NSW Recovery Coordinator Mal Lanyon said dealt a devastating psychological hit to residents and business owners.

"There's no doubt that last week's event was a further blow to the psyche," Mr Lanyon said.

READ MORE: Hundreds of bodies removed from Ukraine mass grave

Residents in Lismore are exhausted and calling for more help as the impact of floods becomes clear.

Many business owners had only just cleaned up and begun trading when the second flood swept through the region, he said.

"It is devastating."

Mr Lanyon said the focus now was increasing the pace of the clean-up so that tradies could get in and start rebuilding homes and damaged infrastructure.

"Realistically, to completely rebuild some of these communities we're talking months and years.

"The sheer scale and scope of the damage that was occasioned by the first unprecedented flood means that it is going to take a significant period."

A lack of emergency housing for those who had lost everything was now causing real problems, he said.

"The areas around the Northern Rivers is not blessed with a lot of vacancies."

READ MORE: Human remains found on NSW farm

Heavy rainfall in NSW this summer has caused two deadly floods.Lismore residents were hit with a second devastating flood in a month.

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Government agencies were working on providing "mid term accommodation" while longer term solutions were being established.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet will travel to Lismore today, where he will announce grants of $20,000 for each flood-affected household in eight local government areas.

Families in Hawkesbury, Ballina, Byron, Clarence Valley, Kyogle, Lismore, Richmond Valley and Tweed LGAs will be eligible for the financial aid.

The NSW Premier will announce grants of $20,000 for flood-affected households in eight local government areas.

Only home owners and renters who are not insured and have not previously claimed the Disaster Relief Grant will be eligible.