Forest of graves
Where Russia left 200 victims of its brutal occupation
STRETCHING back into the trees, ranks of crude wooden crosses mark the last resting place of more than 200 Ukrainians – most of them civilians – slaughtered in Putin’s invasion.
The burials are part of a grave site of around 450 individuals that officials began exhuming yesterday around the newly liberated town of Izyum.
Some of the bodies showed signs of torture, with their hands tied behind their backs and ropes around their necks, it was claimed. Others showed injuries consistent with rocket or shelling attacks.
President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of genocide and called for the occupiers to be held to account. He said on social media yesterday: ‘The world must act. Russia must be recognised as a state sponsor of terrorism. Russia leaves only death and sufferings.’
It follows the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive against Moscow’s forces around Kharkiv in the northeast of the country.
Ukrainian police chief Igor Klymenko said most of those in the mass graves were civilians.
‘At least ten torture centres’
‘We have information that there are soldiers there too, we haven’t recovered a single one yet,’ he said. Initial accounts suggested some may have also died from a lack of access to healthcare.
Mr Klymenko said his forces had also discovered ‘the presence of at least ten torture centres’ across territories formerly held by Russia in the Kharkiv region. The UN said yesterday it plans to send a team of investigators to the area.
Russia held the area for more than five months. Izyum was used as a logistics hub by its army.
The Ukrainian military’s recent successes saw its soldiers kick out Russian forces across an area roughly the same size as Crete over the past week.
It has boosted morale and also strengthened Mr Zelensky’s case for the West to send Ukraine more of the weapons they need.
One of Vladimir Putin’s puppet politicians in the occupied southern Ukrainian region of Kherson tried to claim that Russian soldiers were not behind the slayings. Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-backed administration, said they had been killed by Ukraine, echoing Kremlin propaganda about the murders in Bucha in March.
Meanwhile, Ukraine launched at least five long-range strikes on the occupation authorities in Kherson at the very moment Kremlin-installed officials sat down for meetings yesterday.
The attacks struck the headquarters of the occupation authorities, killing at least one person with footage of the aftermath released on social media.
In the so-called Luhansk’s People’s Republic, prosecutor-general Sergei Gorenko and his deputy Ekaterina Steglenko were killed by a bomb blast at their offices.
Ukraine did not claim responsibility, but senior presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak suggested Russia could have been behind their deaths. Mr Podolyak, one of Mr Zelensky’s closest aides, said their killings could be seen as ‘the Russian Federation’s purge of witnesses to war crimes.’
Several pro-Moscow officials have been targeted for assassination in recent weeks, but Kyiv has never formally confirmed or denied any involvement.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg yesterday warned Kyiv’s allies the war could still go on for years.
Praising Ukraine’s recent gains he said: ‘This is not the beginning of the end of the war, we need to be prepared for the long haul.’
Putin faced further humiliation yesterday after the independent Russian media outlet Meduza reported that he is furious at increasingly excessive drinking by aides since the Ukraine invasion.
Quoting a source close to the president, it said: ‘They hit the bottle [in February]. And some of them don’t want to stop,’ said one source. ‘Some [officials] have missed important events; others have slurred their words and said things that don’t make sense in official settings.’
To add to Putin’s military woes, Russian troops are short of infantry and junior officers in their war against Ukraine, according to Britain’s Ministry of Defence.
The war is having a significant impact on Russian personnel strength, its daily intelligence briefing released yesterday said.
The scathing assessment of Russia’s forces comes after a proPutin tycoon was shown on video trying to recruit prisoners to fight in Ukraine for the brutal Wagner Group, a self-styled private military contractor.
‘The impact of Russia’s manpower challenge has become increasingly severe,’ the intelligence report said.
‘Russian military academies are shortening training courses and bringing cadets graduation dates forwards. This is almost certainly so cadets can be deployed to support the Ukraine operation.’
British officials said the acceleration of officer cadets’ training, and Wagner’s demand for assault troops points to ‘the most critical shortages’ in Moscow’s ranks.
‘They hit the bottle in February’