Even heavy rains could not erase the smell of death in the pine forest in Izium on Friday afternoon as Ukrainian investigators worked on a mass grave site found in the eastern Ukrainian city after it was recaptured by Russian forces. Ukraine’s defense ministry said at least 440 graves had been found in the city in recent days. The country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that some of the bodies found in Izium showed “signs of torture”, accusing Russia of what he called “cruelty and terrorism”. When CNN arrived at the mass burial site Friday afternoon, officials were moving body bags, including one that appeared to be holding something very small, into a refrigerated truck. Most graves in the burial ground are individual graves, with wooden crosses placed on top of earthen mounds. Some with handwritten names and numbers. One was numbered as high as 398. Another with the name of an 82-year-old man. An official at the site told CNN that investigations should determine when those people died. Further down in the woods is what appeared to be a former military post, with tank emplacements dug deep into the ground. A police officer at the scene told CNN that the site is a mass grave where 17 bodies were found. “There are civilian bodies here and military bodies further away,” said Igor Garmas, a researcher on the scene for the particular part of the site he was examining, pointing to a site nearby. “Over 20 bodies were examined and sent for further investigation,” he told CNN. Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications said on Thursday that some of the graves discovered in Izium were “fresh” and that the bodies buried there were “mostly civilians”. An Izium resident who lived across the street from the mass burial site told CNN that the Russians first hit a nearby city cemetery with an airstrike and then moved on. “They brought their special machines. They dug some trenches for their vehicles. We only heard how they were destroying the forest,” Nadezhda Kalinichenko told CNN. She said she tried not to go out during the time the city was under Russian occupation because she was too scared. “When they left, I don’t know if there was a fight or not. We just heard a lot of heavy trucks one night a week ago,” he said. Some background: Izium came under intense Russian artillery fire in April. The city, which lies near the border between Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, became an important hub for the invading army during its five-month occupation. Ukrainian forces took control of the city on Saturday, dealing a strategic blow to Russia’s military offensive in the east.
