Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegoubov said on Friday that 99% of the bodies exhumed in Izium, a city in eastern Ukraine recently salvaged from the Russians by Kiev troops, “show signs of a violent death.” “.
“There are several bodies with their hands tied behind their backs and a person is buried with a rope around their neck. It is clear that these people have been tortured and executed,” Synegoubov emphasized via the social network Telegram.
In the same publication, the Kharkov regional governor presented images of the hundreds of graves found near Izium.
According to the same source, “450 bodies of civilians with marks of violent death and torture were buried” at this site discovered by Ukrainian authorities.
Oleg Synegoubov added that “there were also children” among the bodies exhumed during the day by the “200 agents and specialists” working on the site.
Earlier in the day, a journalist from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) managed to see at least one body with its hands tied with a rope in the same spot, without being able to immediately tell whether it was a civilian or a soldier, because the body was very deteriorated.
The counter-offensive launched by the Ukrainian army in the region in early September made it possible to recapture areas hitherto occupied by troops from Moscow.
Moscow was previously accused of war crimes in other regions of Ukraine, mainly around Kiev in the early weeks of the conflict, but has consistently dismissed these charges.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian troops of “murder” and “torture” after hundreds of graves were discovered in a forest near Izium.
“Bucha, Mariupol, now unfortunately Izium. Russia (…) must be held to account,” the Ukrainian leader promised.
Ukrainian officials also said they found evidence of torture elsewhere in the region.
Ukrainian human rights officer Dmytro Loubinets also said via Telegram that “more than 1,000 Ukrainian civilians were probably tortured and killed in the liberated areas of the Kharkiv region”.
Witnesses and a Ukrainian investigator said some were shot and others killed by artillery fire, mines or air strikes.
The UN human rights organization has already said it will investigate the killings.
Authorities believe most of the people buried there are civilians, but there was at least one mass grave where 17 Ukrainian soldiers were discovered.
The military offensive launched into Ukraine by Russia on Feb. 24 has already resulted in more than 13 million people having fled — more than six million internally displaced persons and more than 7.2 million to European countries — according to the latest UN data, who rank this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
The Russian invasion – justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security – was condemned by the international community at large, which has responded by sending arms to Ukraine and to impose political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN presented 5,827 dead civilians and 8,421 injured since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are far below the actual number.
Source: DN
