The site near Izium, recently recaptured by Russian forces, appears to be one of the largest discovered in Ukraine. Zelensky spoke in a video rushed out hours after the excavations began, apparently to underline the seriousness of the discovery. He said more than 440 graves have been found at the site, but the number of victims is not yet known. Digging in the rain, workers pulled body after body out of the sandy soil in a misty pine forest near Izium. Protected by head-to-toe suits and rubber gloves, they gently felt through the decaying remains of the victims’ clothing, seemingly searching for identification. Associated Press reporters who visited the site saw graves marked with simple wooden crosses. Some of the markers had people’s names on them and hung flowers. Before digging, searchers with metal detectors scanned the site for explosives and soldiers taped red and white plastic tape between the trees. Zelensky said hundreds of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, were found near Izium’s Pishchanske cemetery after being tortured, shot or killed by artillery shelling. He reported evidence of atrocities, including a body with a rope around its neck and broken arms. In another sign of possible torture, a man was found with his hands tied, according to Serhiy Bohdan, Kharikiv’s head of police investigations, and Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets. Ukrainian authorities have warned that their investigation has only just begun and the scale of the killings could increase dramatically. “Hard reality shows that the death toll in Izium may be many times higher than the Bucha tragedy,” Oleg Kotenko, an official at the Ukrainian ministry in charge of reintegration of occupied territories, told Telegram. Bucha is a suburb of Kiev where authorities said 458 bodies were found after 33 days of Russian occupation. Authorities say they have uncovered the bodies of more than 1,300 people elsewhere, many in mass graves in the Kiev region’s forest. Zelensky, who visited the Izium region on Wednesday, said the discoveries again showed the need for world leaders to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. Meanwhile, in his first public comments on Ukraine’s recent battlefield gains, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue the war and warned that Moscow could intensify its strikes on the country’s vital infrastructure if Ukrainian forces target facilities in Russia. “If the situation develops this way, our response will be more serious,” Putin told reporters on Friday after attending a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan. Russia has reported numerous explosions and fires at civilian infrastructure sites near Ukraine, as well as at ammunition depots and other facilities. Ukraine claimed responsibility for some of the attacks and declined to comment on others. The “liberation” of Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region remained Russia’s main military goal, Putin said. “We are in no rush,” he said, adding that Russia has only deployed volunteer soldiers to fight in Ukraine. Some hard-line Russian political and military bloggers have complained about the manpower shortage and urged the Kremlin to follow Ukraine’s lead and order widespread mobilization to bolster the ranks. Ukrainian forces gained access to the site near Izium after recapturing the northeastern city and much of the greater Kharkiv region in a light advance that suddenly turned the tide in the nearly seven-month war. Ukrainian officials also found evidence of torture in other parts of the region. The UN human rights office said it would investigate and rights group Amnesty International said the discovery of the mass grave confirmed “our darkest fears”. “For any unlawful killing or other war crime, there must be justice and reparation for the victims and their families and a fair trial and accountability for the suspected perpetrators,” said Marie Struthers, director of the group for Eastern and Central Europe. Asia. Most of the people buried at the site are believed to be civilians, but a marker on a mass grave said it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. Russian officials distanced themselves from responsibility for the site. The governor of Harivu region, Vitaly Gadchev, told Russian state news agency Tass that Ukrainian, not Russian, forces were responsible for the civilian casualties in Izio. Tass also cited a member of the Russian parliament, Alexander Malkevich, who claimed that Ukrainian troops had abandoned their dead, so Russian forces buried them. Elsewhere in Ukraine, the war continued to claim lives and cause destruction. — Ukraine’s presidential office said Russian shelling killed five civilians and wounded 18 over a 24-hour period. Shelling was also reported, with Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih among the targets for the third day in a row on Friday. Air raid sirens screamed in the capital, Kyiv. — More killings targeting pro-Russian separatist officials were reported in areas under their control. Separatist authorities said an explosion killed the prosecutor general and his deputy of the self-proclaimed republic in the Luhansk region. Moscow-backed authorities said two Russian-settled officials were also killed in Berdyansk, a town in the Zaporizhia region it held earlier in the war. And local authorities said three people were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack on an administrative building in Russian-held Kherson. — To bolster the Ukrainian offensive, the Biden administration announced another $600 million military aid package. Izium resident Sergei Gorodko said that among the hundreds buried in individual graves were dozens of adults and children killed in a Russian airstrike on a block of flats, some of whom he pulled from the rubble “with my own hands”. Izium was a key supply hub for Russian forces until they withdrew in recent days. Izium city council member Maksym Strelnikov told reporters that hundreds of people had died during the fighting and after Russia took over the city in March. Many could not be buried properly, he said. His claims could not be immediately verified, but similar scenes have played out in other cities captured by Russian forces, including Mariupol. Ukraine’s national police chief, Ihor Klymenko, said “torture chambers” had been found in recaptured towns and villages in the Kharkiv region. The claim could not be independently verified. Seven Sri Lankan students who fell into Russian hands in Kupyansk, also in the Kharkiv region, also said they were detained and mistreated, he said. “They’re scared, they’ve been abused,” Klimenko said. They include “a woman who can barely speak” and two people with torn fingernails.
This story has been updated to correct that seven, not six, Sri Lankan students said they fell into Russian hands.
Associated Press reporters Hanna Arhirova and Jon Gambrell in Kyiv and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed reporting.
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