“A mass grave of people was found in Izium in the Kharkiv region. The necessary procedures have already started there. More information – clear, verifiable information – should be available tomorrow,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly televised speech. Associated Press reporters saw the site in a forest outside Izium on Thursday. A mass grave bore a sign saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. It was surrounded by hundreds of individual graves with only crosses to mark them. Zelensky cited the names of other Ukrainian cities where authorities said retreating Russian troops left behind mass graves of civilians and evidence of alleged war crimes. “Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izium. Russia leaves death everywhere. And it must be held accountable for that. The world must hold Russia to real responsibility for this war,” he said. Russian forces withdrew from Izium and other parts of the Kharkiv region last week amid a stunning Ukrainian counter-offensive. On Wednesday, Zelenskyy made a rare trip outside the Ukrainian capital to watch the raising of the national flag at Izium’s town hall. Sergei Bolvinov, a senior Ukrainian police investigator in the eastern Kharkiv region, told British broadcaster Sky News that a pit containing more than 440 bodies was discovered near Izium after Kiev forces invaded. He described the tomb as “one of the largest burial sites in any liberated city”. “We know that some [of the people buried in the pit] they were shot, some died from artillery fire, from so-called mine blast injuries. Some died from airstrikes. Also, we have information that many bodies have not yet been identified,” Bolvinov said.
Minister cites evidence of ‘torture chambers’
Ukraine’s Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Enin said Thursday night that evidence was found in cities and towns recaptured during Kiev’s sweeping advance that Russian occupation troops had set up multiple “torture chambers” where Ukrainian citizens as well as and foreigners “in completely inhumane conditions”. in the Kharkiv region. “We have already encountered the exhumation of individual bodies, not only with traces of violent death, but also of torture — cut off ears, etc. This is just the beginning,” Enin said in an interview with Ukraine’s Radio NV. His description matches at least half a dozen reports made by Kharkiv regional police officials since last weekend. Women stand near a residential building destroyed by a military attack in Izium, Ukraine, on Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that a mass grave had been found near the city. (Vyacheslav Madievsky/Reuters) He claimed that among those detained at one of the points were students from an unspecified Asian country who were detained at a Russian checkpoint as they tried to leave for territory controlled by Ukraine. Enin did not specify where the students were being held, although he named the small towns of Balakliya and Volchansk as two locations where the alleged torture chambers were found. His account could not be immediately independently verified. “All these traces of war crimes are now carefully documented by us. And we know from Bukha’s experience that the worst crimes can only be revealed over time,” Enin said, referring to a Kiev suburb where the bodies of hundreds of civilians they were discovered after the Russian army withdrew from the area in March. Earlier on Thursday, Zelensky said that during the five months that the Russians occupied the region, “they only destroyed, only deprived, only took away. They left behind destroyed villages; in some of them there is not a single intact house. The occupiers they turned schools into garbage dumps and churches — smashed, literally turned into toilets.”
