Bodies of civilians found piled up in eastern Ukraine

Ukrainian authorities confirmed on Thursday (local time) that they discovered a pile of the bodies of civilian victims of a mass massacre in the recaptured hub city of Izium in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a TV speech that not only Bucha and Mariupol but also Izium was devastated by bloody mass killings, stressing that the international community should ensure that Russia pays a hefty price for committing a series of massacre all over the Ukrainian territory.

The Ukrainian government released a horrible burial site to journalists. The Associated Press reported that the site of the mass killing on the outskirts of Izium was covered with hundreds of graves with wooden crosses, most of which are marked with numbers. One of the graves had a marking saying that 17 Ukrainian soldiers were buried there.

Serhiy Volvinov, the head of the investigation team in the Kharkiv regional police, told British news agency Sky News that at least 440 bodies were discovered in the mass burial site, adding that it is the largest mass grave ever found in any recaptured part of the country. The bodies buried in the ground were found with the deadly wounds left by gunshots, shelling, landmine assaults, and airstrikes. The identity of most of the bodies found on the site has not been confirmed yet, said Volvinov.

Sergei Gorodko, a local resident, testified that the hundreds of the bodies buried on the site include not only troops but also dozens of adults and children who were victimized in a Russian airstrike on an apartment building. He said he dragged some of them out of the ruins.

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yevhen Yenin told a local news agency on Thursday that Ukrainian authorities found evidence that Russian troops ran multiple torture chambers, adding, “We have already seen some exhumated bodies not only with signs of violent death, but also torture – cut-off ears and so on.”

Also in June, 458 bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs in Bucha, a small city near Kyiv.


Min Kim kimmin@donga.com