The Ukrainian president said there was evidence that the victims had been tortured. He said some were found with broken limbs and ropes around their necks, and that the burial site contained the bodies of civilians and military personnel. “Children and adults. Politicians and military. He was tortured, shot, killed by shelling,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Even whole families are buried there: mother, father and daughter.” More than 400 graves have been found at the site. Mr Zelensky, who visited the area around Izyum on Wednesday, said the discoveries again showed the need for world leaders to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. He confirmed the grim discovery on Thursday night and said “necessary procedures have already started there”. View of unidentified graves of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers in a forest outside Izyum (AP) “The Russian army has been in the Kharkiv region for more than five months. And during this period, the occupiers did not even try to do anything for the people,” said Mr. Zelensky. “They only destroyed, only deprived, only removed. They left behind devastated villages, and in some of them there is not a single house intact. Russia can bring nothing but genocide.” The site in the eastern city of Izyum also contained bodies of people killed by shelling and airstrikes, regional police official Serhiy Bolvinov said. Mr Bolvinov, the chief police investigator for the Kharkiv region, told Sky News that forensic examinations would be carried out on all the bodies. On Friday it was reported that around 200 wooden crosses were discovered at a site near the city. There was at least one mass grave, with a marker saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. On Friday, Ukraine’s police chief said most of the people buried in the mass grave were civilians. Asked whether the Izyum site contained mostly civilians or soldiers, police chief Ihor Klymenko told a press conference: “In a preliminary assessment, civilians. Although we have information that there are soldiers there as well, we have not recovered a single one yet.” Exhumations are continuing, he added. Local 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. He said he had pulled some of them out of the rubble “with my own hands.” A spokeswoman for the U.N. human rights office, Liz Throssell, told a news conference in Geneva that the organization plans to send observers to the city to “try to determine a little bit more about what might have happened,” though she did not give a time frame. . Mr Zelensky blamed Russia and likened the discovery to what had happened in Bukha, on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, during the early stages of the invasion by Russian forces. Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russian forces of committing war crimes there. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives for an interview with reporters in Kyiv on September 16 (Reuters) “Bucha, Mariupol… now, unfortunately, Izyum. Russia leaves death everywhere. And he must be held accountable for it. The world must hold Russia to real responsibility for this war,” Zelensky said. Russian forces withdrew from Izyum and other parts of the Kharkiv region last week amid a stunning Ukrainian counter-offensive. On Wednesday, Mr Zelensky made a rare trip from the Ukrainian capital to watch the raising of the national flag at Izyum’s town hall. Russia has yet to comment on the claims of a mass grave in Izyum. It has repeatedly denied targeting civilians or committing war crimes. But an unrepentant Vladimir Putin warned the war could get “more serious” for Ukraine, despite the smaller country’s recent successes. Speaking after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand, Mr Putin said Moscow was in no rush to Ukraine and that its goals remained unchanged. “Kiev authorities have announced that they have launched and are conducting an active counter-offensive. Well, let’s see how it turns out, how it ends up,” Putin said with a smile. “Recently, the Russian armed forces have dealt some sensitive blows. Let’s assume it’s a warning. If the situation continues to develop like this, then the response will be more serious,” he said. Additional reports from agencies
