A massive mass grave with more than 440 graves was discovered in the recently recaptured city of Izyum as police continue to gather evidence of alleged Russian war crimes.
Serhii Bolvinov, the top police investigator for the Kharkiv region, has stated that the remains will be excavated and transported for forensic investigation.
It is part of a massive police investigation in which cops collaborate with prosecutors and other investigators to discover atrocities.
Mr. Bolvinov told Sky News that the discovery of the mass grave was particularly surprising and horrifying for him, and that it constitutes a crime against humanity. This shouldn’t be the case in 2022’s civilized globe. This is such a horrifying and awful tale from any perspective.
Mr. Bolvinov was asked how the victims perished, to which he responded that some were killed by gunfire, others by artillery fire, and others by airstrikes.
As many of the remains have not yet been recognized, he continued, additional examinations will be conducted to determine the causes of death.
According to different Ukrainian officials, at least 1,000 civilians perished in Izyum alone, while others were left to suffer from wounds caused by Russian soldiers who destroyed all hospitals and seized medical equipment.
Yesterday, a Russian tank and armoured personnel carriers were destroyed on the outskirts of the recently captured city of Izyum in Kharkiv area.
Ukrainian war crimes investigators examine the remains of a civilian found in the Kharkiv region village of Zaliznychne. According to residents, the victim was tortured and murdered by Russian troops.
According to Ukrainian investigators, Russian forces severed the ear of a young man before shooting him in the back of the head.
In frightening echoes of their departure from Kiev, additional horrible tales of mass murder, torture, rape, and mutilation at the hands of Russian troops are being found in other newly liberated regions of Ukraine.
Individuals who survived the occupation in Balakliya and Kupyansk speak of torture chambers put up in basements, rapes, and mutilations committed by Putin’s forces – some indiscriminately, others in an attempt to root out those loyal to Ukraine.
The names of these cities will now live in infamy with Bucha and Irpin – Kiev suburbs where the first proof of Russia’s murderous campaign of violence against innocent bystanders was discovered following the April retreat.
More than 450 individuals are documented to have perished in the vicinity of Kyiv, indicating that the scale of atrocities in Izyum and throughout Kharkiv was significantly greater.
Maksim Strelnikov, head of the Izyum municipal council, stated, “The occupants committed war crimes and attempted to conceal them here, as they did elsewhere.
According to the available information, at least one thousand civilians were killed as a result of military actions.
Unfortunately, many more individuals have suffered because they lacked timely access to medical care.
Presidential adviser Anton Gerashchenko, former presidential spokesperson Iuliia Mendel, and Izyum mayor Valery Marchenko echoed his sentiments.
On a visit to the region Monday, Mr. Gerashchenko remarked, “Right now, in Kharkiv, I feel both happiness and rage.
“Rejoice in the liberation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians.” Anger that so many lives were shattered and so many individuals were murdered, tortured, and raped.
The infrastructure and factories of that region were decimated. Russia must foot the bill.’
Under Russian occupation, 1,000 citizens have killed in the city of Izyum alone, according to Ukrainian officials.
The state prosecutor of Ukraine has dispatched more than two dozen teams of investigators to the more than 8,000 square kilometers of territory that Ukraine reclaimed from Russia in a weeklong lightning attack.
So far, investigators have discovered the remains of at least six people who, according to them, were executed by the Russians.
In the town of Hrakove, villagers led investigators to the graves of two young men whom they claim Russian forces compelled them to bury.
The bodies were exhumed by investigators who determined that they bore evidence of torture and summary execution.
Each has a wound to the back of the head from a bullet. Their ears were amputated.
In the village of Zaliznychne, villagers reportedly led Ukrainian troops to four graves containing the bodies of their murdered neighbors at the hands of Putin’s men.
Three were buried in their gardens, while the fourth was found at a tarmac factory near the local train station. Prosecutors claim that all exhibit evidence of abuse.
Oleksii Kashporovskyi, a journalist-turned-soldier from Ukraine, described the crimes he witnessed while freeing the town of Bohorodychne to the news website TSN.
Kashporovskyi stated that he discovered the decapitated bodies of six Ukrainian servicemen with the decapitated remains of ten civilians.
A 93-year-old woman and her 60-year-old son were the only two residents still alive in the community. The woman’s other son and his wife had been killed by the Russians, according to her son.
She directed the Ukrainians to the location behind her residence where she buried the dead.
A prayer scrawled on the wall of a prison cell where, according to Ukrainians, Russian troops detained prisoners for weeks while abusing them.
A Ukrainian man described being interrogated in this cellar, where he was made to hold electric wires as Russian troops zapped him and demanded that he reveal the identities of any government accomplices.
Yulia Petrova, a veterinarian from the city of Kupyansk, told the news website Meduza about her life under Russian control up until last month, when she was able to escape.
She stated that Russian troops created torture cells in the basements of buildings where both male and female “inhuman screams” could be heard.
Villagers were urged to report pro-Ukraine sympathizers, including their relatives and neighbors, who were subsequently kidnapped.
Some torture victims escaped from the cellars unable to stand or walk. Others were never rediscovered.
Local fishermen related how they discovered a body in a nearby river with its hands bound and its head in a bag.
They reported the incident to the local Russian commander, and soldiers removed the body without comment.
At other times, inebriated Russian soldiers would randomly approach civilians and threaten to shoot them.
Yulia described how she decided to flee after someone reported her pro-Ukraine views, resulting in a visit from the occupiers.
She claimed that soldiers broke into her home, searched it for Ukrainian flags or insignia, combed through her phone, and when they couldn’t find anything, placed a loaded gun against her daughter’s head in an attempt to elicit a confession.
Yulia fled the following day, using a friend’s car and bribes to pass through checkpoints until she reached Ukrainian borders.
This account is consistent with that of BBC reporters who visited the city of Balakliya and were shown what the Ukrainians said was a torture room in the basement.
The new atrocities recall those done earlier in the war in Bucha and Irpin, where at least 458 civilians perished under Russian rule (pictured, a mass grave)
The basement floors of the police station were utilized by Russian troops to hold and brutalize anyone they suspected of belonging to the army or administration.
Up to eight men were detained for weeks at a time in cells built for two or three as they were interrogated, frequently while being electrocuted.
Locals claim that during the torture sessions, the Russians cut off the building’s noisy ventilation system so that the victims’ screams could be heard outside.
The techniques are exact replicas of the horrors committed in February and April, when Russian soldiers invaded the cities of Bucha and Irpin.
Local investigators and international observers have uncovered evidence of summary executions, enforced disappearances, and torture that constitute war crimes and probably crimes against humanity.
In total, 458 individuals are reported to have perished in Bucha and Irpin; many of them were rolled into mass graves that Ukrainian forces later excavated.
The discovery of the murders prompted international condemnation of Russia’s military campaign and a wave of support for Ukraine.
Zelensky and a number of other world leaders labeled them crimes against humanity and dubbed Putin a war criminal, pledging to bring all of the perpetrators to court.
Since then, the Ukraine claims to have identified a large number of soldiers and commanders who were in the area at the time, and has released their information online.
Russia continues to deny that its forces strike people on purpose