Police examine over 12,000 killings in Russian invasion
BUCHA, Ukraine — The lush green beauty of a pine forest and singing birds contrasted with the violent deaths of newly discovered victims of Russia’s war in Ukraine, as workers exhumed bodies from another burial site near Bucha on Kyiv’s outskirts.
The hands of several victims were tied behind their backs.
The gruesome work of digging up the remains coincided with the Ukrainian police chief ’s report that authorities have opened criminal investigations into the killings of more than 12,000 people since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Workers in white hazmat suits and wearing masks used shovels to exhume bodies from the soil of the forest, marking each section with small yellow numbered signs on the ground. The bodies, covered in cloth and dirt, attracted flies and were dragged by rope.
“Shots to the knees tell us that people were tortured,” said Andriy Nebytov, head of the Kyiv regional police. “The hands tied behind the back with tape say that people had been held (hostage) for a long time and (enemy forces) tried to get any information from them.”
Since the withdrawal of Russian troops from the region at the end of March, the authorities say they have uncovered the bodies of 1,316 people.
The horrors of Bucha shocked the world after Russian troops left. The mass grave that reporters saw Monday was just behind a trench dug out for a military vehicle. The bodies of seven civilians were retrieved. Two of the bodies were found
with their hands tied and gunshot wounds to the knees and head, Nebytov said.
National police Chief Igor Klimenko told the Interfax-ukraine news agency that criminal investigations into the deaths of more than 12,000 Ukrainians included some found in mass graves. He said the mass killings of people resulted from snipers firing from tanks and armored personnel carriers. Bodies were found on streets, in homes and in mass graves. He didn’t specify how many were civilian or military.
Complete information about the number of bodies in mass graves or elsewhere isn’t known, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the American Jewish Committee on Sunday.
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust, asked:
“Why is this happening in 2022? This is not the 1940s. How could mass killings, torture, burned cities and filtration camps set up by the Russian military in the occupied territories resembling Nazi concentration camps come true?” In related news:
Mexican President Andrws Manuel Lopez
Obrador’s president slammed NATO’S policy on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Monday, calling it “immoral.”
Lopez Obrador did not mention NATO or the United States by name, but his comments were the latest example of his party’s ambiguous stance on the invasion.
Mexico has voted to condemn the invasion, but refused to join in sanctions on Russia.
Lopez Obrador said the allies’ policy was equivalent to saying: “I’ll supply the weapons, and you supply the dead. It is immoral.”
NATO Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said he was “glad” the Swedish government has confirmed its “readiness to address Turkey’s concerns as part of assuming the obligations of future NATO membership.”
After decades of military non-alignment, Russia’s war in Ukraine pushed Finland and Sweden to apply to join NATO in May. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, accuses the Nordic nations of supporting Kurdish militants deemed by Turkey to be terrorists and has vetoed their entry into the alliance until they change their policies.