Hundreds found in mass burial site after Russians leave Ukraine city
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[September 16, 2022]
By Tom Balmforth and Vitalii Hnidyi
KYIV/KUPIANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) -Ukrainian
officials said they found a mass burial site with 440 bodies, mainly of
civilians, in a northeastern city recaptured from Russian forces,
calling it proof of war crimes carried out by the invaders in territory
they had occupied for months.
"Russia is leaving death behind it everywhere and must be held
responsible," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video
address overnight.
The site in the former Russian front-line stronghold of Izium would be
the biggest mass burial found in Europe since the aftermath of the 1990s
Balkan wars. Ukrainian forces retook Izium after thousands of Russian
troops fled the area, abandoning weapons and ammunition.
Ukrainian police chief Ihor Klymenko told a news conference all of the
bodies recovered so far at the site appeared to be of civilians,
although there was information that some soldiers might have been buried
there too.
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"For months a rampant terror, violence, torture and mass murders were in
the occupied territories," Zelenskiy adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted
in English, above photos of a forest scattered with wooden crosses in
fresh muddy ground. A huge pit was taped off with red-and-white
crime-scene tape.
"Anyone else wants to 'freeze the war' instead of sending tanks? We have
no right to leave people alone with the Evil."
Russia did not immediately comment on the reports of the mass burial
site. In the past it has denied its troops commit atrocities in the
conflict. Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military
operation" to disarm its neighbour.
In Kupiansk, a northeastern railway junction city whose partial capture
by Kyiv's forces on Saturday cut Russia's supply lines and led to the
swift collapse at the front, small units of Ukrainian troops were
securing a nearly deserted ghost town.
BLOOD ON THE FLOOR
A formerly Russian-occupied police station had been hastily abandoned in
Kupiansk, about 60 km (37 miles) north of Izium.
Russian flags and a portrait of President Vladimir Putin lay on the
floor of the station amid broken glass. Records had been torched. Behind
the steel doors of the station's jail cells there was blood on the floor
and stains on the mattresses.
Three piglets on the loose from an abandoned sty were foraging in the
city street. Serhiy, a middle-aged man in a thin jacket, was hungry for
news.
"There’s no electricity, no phones. If there were electricity, at least
we could have watched TV. If there were phones, we could have called our
relatives," he said. "If only there hadn't been all this bombing with
everyone in their basements.”
After a week of rapid gains in the northeast, Ukrainian officials have
sought to dampen expectations that they could continue to advance at
that pace. They say Russian troops that fled the Kharkiv region are now
digging in and planning to defend territory in neighbouring Luhansk and
Donetsk provinces.
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![](../images/091622PIX/news_e81.jpg)
Signal tape is seen over a grave of an
unidentified Ukrainian soldier at an improvised cemetery in the town
of Izium, recently recently liberated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces
during a counteroffensive operation, amid Russia's attack on
Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine September 15, 2022. REUTERS/Oleksandr
Khomenko
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"It is of course extremely encouraging to see that Ukrainian armed
forces have been able to take back territory and also strike behind
Russian lines," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told BBC
radio.
"At the same time, we need to understand that this is not the
beginning of the end of the war. We need to be prepared for the long
haul."
Putin has yet to comment publicly on the battlefield setback
suffered by his forces this month. Ukrainian officials say 9,000 sq
km (3,400 sq miles) have been retaken, about the size of the island
of Cyprus.
Ukraine has also launched a major offensive to recapture territory
in the south, where it aims to trap thousands of Russian troops cut
off from supplies on the west bank of the Dnipro river, and retake
Kherson, the only large city Russia has captured intact since the
start of the war.
Russia's state-run RIA news agency released video showing smoke
billowing from Kherson's Russian-occupied administration building
after apparent Ukrainian rocket attacks.
Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy head of the region,
told Russian state TV that one wing of the building had been
practically destroyed, and there were dead and wounded though it was
too soon to say how many. Ukrainian officials did not immediately
comment.
In the east, the chief prosecutor of the pro-Russian separatist
administration in Luhansk was killed by an explosion in his office,
along with his deputy, according to Russian news agencies. Russia
also reported strikes across the border in its Belgorod region.
The war and sanctions on Russia have caused a surge in energy prices
especially in Europe, which relies on Russian oil and gas. Germany
announced on Friday a regulator was seizing the German arm of
Russian oil company Rosneft, including a giant refinery supplying
most fuel for the capital Berlin.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Sep/16/images/ads/current/culligan_sda_FAIR_2022.png)
The Schwedt refinery depends on oil pumped from Russia through the
"Friendship" pipeline to formerly Communist eastern Europe. German
officials have said they expect the country will no longer receive
Russian oil.
The speed of Ukraine's advance has boosted its morale and bolstered
its case for more weapons from Western allies.
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new $600 million
arms package for Ukraine, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket
Systems (HIMARS) and artillery rounds. The United States has sent
about $15.1 billion in security assistance to Kyiv since Russia's
Feb. 24 invasion.
(Reporting by Reuters bureauxWriting by Grant McCool, Stephen Coates
and Peter Graff; editing by Shri Navaratnam and Mark Heinrich)
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