The horrors of the war in Ukraine deepened after Russian troops were accused of setting up a torture chamber and burning a child and his parents alive.
The charred remains of the boy and his family were discovered by Ukrainian troops who liberated an occupied village. The harrowing photos illustrate the unbearable horrors of a war now raging into its seventh week.
Officials said the innocent civilians appeared to have been tortured and mutilated in an outbuilding before they were set on fire. Nearby, a paramedic was discovered trussed up and shot in the chest, having also been tortured in his final moments
Troops found the burnt remains of the family in the basement of a house in Husarivka, a village near Kharkiv, which had been under Russian control.
Ukrainian police said: “While documenting the crimes of the Russian military, investigators found three mutilated and tortured bodies in the basement of a household. The identities of the dead are being established.
“According to the investigation, the examination of the bodies revealed traces of prolonged abuse and torture.
“People were burned alive. One child was tortured.” The spokesman said a number of villagers were missing, adding: “Their fate is unknown”.
Amid mounting graphic evidence of war crimes across the country, 132 civilians were found shot dead in Makariv, a town 30 miles west of the capital Kyiv. Ukrainian defence forces discovered a teenage boy shot dead in a forest, hands bound behind his back.
Ten miles further north, corpses were recovered from a mass grave in a churchyard in Borodyanka, with the hellish scenes feared to be worse than those in nearby Bucha where at least 300 people were shot execution-style, at close range.
In Kherson, 45 miles south-east of Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea, Russian soldiers are abducting and torturing civilians in the only city they control.
Ukrainians mounting protests against the Russian presence have been shot at, hunted down in their homes and kidnapped, residents say. Captives have been interrogated in the basement of the police department seized by Russians and the fate of many remains unknown.
Inna, 52, has been unable to leave Kherson and fears for her elderly father, who remains in a nearby village which is being shelled.
She said: “Russian tanks drive around the city and soldiers walk around with weapons. We are intimidated by Russian soldiers who try to bribe us with humanitarian aid.
“Protesters come out to rallies but we put ourselves at risk of being killed. They open fire on us indiscriminately. My friend was shot in the leg.”
Last night, desperate efforts were under way to evacuate civilians trapped in besieged cities before a renewed onslaught.
Fresh attempts were launched to open up 10 humanitarian corridors to move out tens of thousands of people as Moscow bolstered its forces in the country’s east. They include a route out of the shattered city of Mariupol, where 100,000 are still without food, water or power.
Residents in embattled cities in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, in the disputed Donbas region, were also told to get out ahead of an imminent Russian offensive.
But there remain fears among officials that attempts to get families to safety could again falter. Previous efforts have been called off after convoys came under fire. The civilian evacuations began as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky demanded a firm global response to Friday’s deadly train station missile strike.
At least 52 people, including five children, were killed when two rockets ripped through the station in Kramatorsk, where thousands were attempting to flee. The message “for our children” was scrawled in Russian on one of the Tochka-U missiles – but the Kremlin yesterday continued to deny responsibility.
Mariupol, once a dynamic city of 400,000 inhabitants, has been razed during seven weeks of relentless bombardment. Thousands are feared dead either as direct victims of the Russians or by dehydration and starvation.
Western officials said Russian President Vladimir Putin had changed his military leadership, frustrated at his slow progress. General Alexander Dvornikov, a key commander in the Russian bombardment of Syria, has reportedly been put in charge.
Russia ’s invasion, which began on February 4, has forced four million people to flee abroad, killed or injured thousands and left a quarter of the population homeless.
British families claim the Government has let down Ukrainian refugees with its visa scheme. Betsy Freeman, 39, offered Lviv mum Olena, 41, and her 21-year-old niece and eight-year-old daughter a home in Cambridge.
But Betsy, who works in publishing, says she and husband Fred are still waiting for news, despite applying on March 11.
Fred, 38, also in publishing, said: “It took Olena five hours to fill in the insanely complicated and long forms, with little guidance on how to do it. Every day we video call Olena and her family, trying to stay positive while feeling so powerless.
