KYIV: Most of the people buried in a mass grave discovered in the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium are civilians, Ukraine’s police chief said on Friday, based on a preliminary estimate.
Earlier, authorities said they had found a mass grave containing 450 bodies in Izium, a former Russian frontline stronghold, and said this was proof of war crimes carried out by the invaders. Russia has not publicly commented on the matter.
Asked if the mass grave contained mainly civilians or soldiers, police chief Ihor Klymenko told a news conference: “On a preliminary estimate, civilians. Although we have information that there are troops there, we haven’t recovered a single one yet.”
Some of the bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs, the governor of Kharkiv province said.
Men in white overalls were digging out bodies at the site in a forest where around 200 makeshift wooden crosses were scattered among trees. Some 20 white body bags could be seen.
Klymenko also said authorities had discovered at least 10 locations in recaptured territories that had been used for torture.
“I can talk about the presence of at least 10 torture centres in settlements” in the Kharkiv region, the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. He said “two torture centres were found in Balakliya”, a town in the northeast.
“Russia is leaving death behind it everywhere and must be held responsible,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address earlier.
The mass grave would be the biggest in Europe since the aftermath of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Ukrainian forces retook Izium after thousands of Russian troops fled the area, abandoning weapons and ammunition.
“For months a rampant terror, violence, torture and mass murders were in the occupied territories,” Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in a Twitter post in English, above a photo of a forest scattered with wooden crosses in fresh muddy ground.
“Anyone else wants to ‘freeze the war’ instead of sending tanks? We have no right to leave people alone with the Evil.”
Russia did not immediately comment on the reports of the mass grave. In the past it has denied its troops commited atrocities.
In Kupiansk, a northeastern railway junction city whose partial capture by Ukrainian forces on Saturday cut Russia’s supply lines and led to the swift collapse of its front lines in the region, small units of Ukrainian troops were securing a nearly deserted ghost city.
A formerly Russian-occupied police station had been hastily abandoned. Russian flags and a portrait of President Vladimir Putin lay on the floor amid broken glass. Records had been torched. Behind the steel doors of the station’s jail cells there was blood on the floor and stains on the mattresses.
Three piglets escaped from an abandoned sty were foraging in the city street. Serhiy, a middle-aged man in a thin jacket, was hungry for news.
“There’s no electricity, no phones. If there were electricity, at least we could have watched TV. If there were phones, we could have called our relatives,” he said. “If only there hadn’t been all this bombing with everyone in their basements.”
After a week of rapid gains in the northeast, Ukrainian officials have sought to dampen expectations that they could continue to advance at that pace. They say Russian troops that fled the Kharkiv region are now digging in and planning to defend territory in neighbouring Luhansk and Donetsk provinces.
“It is of course extremely encouraging to see that Ukrainian armed forces have been able to take back territory and also strike behind Russian lines,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told BBC radio.
“At the same time, we need to understand that this is not the beginning of the end of the war. We need to be prepared for the long haul.”
Putin has yet to comment publicly on the battlefield setback suffered by his forces this month. Ukrainian officials say 9,000 square kilometres have been retaken.
The speed of the advance has bolstered Ukrainian morale and bolstered its case for more weapons from Western allies.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden announced a new $600 million arms package for Ukraine, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars) and artillery rounds. The United States has sent about $15.1 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since Russia’s Feb 24 invasion.
Russian forces shelled Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, and other towns in the northeast on Thursday, Ukrainian officials said. More than 90 missiles and artillery shells hit the neighbouring Sumy region on the border with Russia, according to its governor, Dmytro Zhyvytsky.
In Uzbekistan on Thursday, Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since the two men signed a “no limits” friendship pact three weeks before the start of the war.
In his public remarks, Putin gave a rare hint of friction with Beijing over the war: “We understand your questions and concern about this. During today’s meeting, we will of course explain our position,” Putin told Xi.
Xi did not mention Ukraine in his public remarks, nor was it mentioned in a Chinese account of the meeting. China has so far trod a careful path, condemning Western sanctions against Russia but stopping short of endorsing or assisting Moscow’s military effort.
