Amid Ukrainian and Western accusations of Russian forces committing atrocities in Izyum city, Kharkiv region In northeastern Ukraine, before the withdrawal from it, satellite images showed mass graves among the trees in the city.
The pictures showed a forest before and after the withdrawal of the Russian forces from it, which shows that a mass grave was dug in it among the trees.
exhumation of corpses
This came after the local authorities started Hundreds of corpses have been exhumed from the cemeterySome handcuffed, or tied necks.
On Friday, Ukrainian officials, wearing protective suits and wearing masks, began digging up the exhumation site at the burial site, where about 200 burials were scattered among the trees of a forest.
GRAPHIC CONTENT: Today I watched as Ukraine began exhuming more than 440 bodies found in a mass burial site on the edge of liberated city Izium, Kharkiv region.
At least 1 civilian showed signs of torture, while I saw two bodies (believed to be soldiers) with their hands tied. pic.twitter.com/hqCENLdtDf
— Liz Cookman (@liz_cookman) September 16, 2022
signs of violence
“This is a mass grave,” Kharkiv Governor Oleg Senegubov said.
He also added that there are bodies with hands tied from behind, pointing out that the authorities will investigate each incident and evaluate it in an appropriate legal manner.
war crimes
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered that the cemetery is evidence of Russian war crimes. He said in an interview with Archyde.com that many of the bodies were also buried in other locations in the northeast, appealing to foreign powers to increase arms supplies to his country, saying that the outcome of the war depends on the speed of their delivery.
From Izyum in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine (Archyde.com)
He also explained that so far, “there are 450 dead people buried, but he indicated that there are others in other places, where separate burials took place for many people. He stressed that there were people who were tortured, while entire families disappeared in certain areas,” he said.
horrific scenes
While horrific scenes of the exhumation of the bodies in the city, which came under the control of the Ukrainian forces a few days ago, spread on social media and international media.
In turn, the head of the pro-Russian administration that abandoned the area last week accused the Ukrainians of committing atrocities at Izyum. “I have not heard anything about burials there,” Vitaly Ganchev told Rossiya 24 state television on Friday evening.
As for Russian President Vladimir Putin, he did not immediately respond to Kyiv’s accusations, but he played down the surprise counter-attack by Ukrainian forces, and warned that Moscow would respond more forcefully if its forces came under more pressure.
The largest mass grave in Europe
It is noteworthy that if this number of bodies is confirmed, this burial site at Izyum will be the largest mass grave found in Europe since the graves left by the Balkan wars in the 1990s.
The Ukrainian forces launched a counter-attack about two weeks ago to restore the towns that Russian forces had controlled for months in Kharkiv (northeast of the country), and they were able to achieve remarkable progress.
It also launched a massive offensive to regain territory in the south, as it seeks to besiege thousands of Russian troops who were cut off from supplies on the western bank of the Dnipro River, and to restore Kherson, the only large city that Russia maintains its control over since the launch of the Russian military operation on the territory of its western neighbor on 24 last February.