Over 400 war crimes seen in Kherson
KHERSON, Ukraine: Ukrainian forces that retook the city of Kherson found evidence of new war crimes by Russian occupiers, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
“The Russian army left behind the same atrocities as in other regions of our country,” he said in his nightly address.
“Investigators have already documented more than 400 war crimes,” the Ukrainian leader added, without clearly specifying the area in which they were found.
“The bodies of the killed are being found, both civilians and military,” Zelenskyy said. “We will find and bring to justice every murderer.”
Ukrainians in the liberated city have expressed a deep sense of relief over the end of months of occupation after Russian forces pulled out last Friday.
But, like Zelenskyy, they said the Russians had left a trail of destruction, laying mines and going on a looting spree — even stealing animals from a zoo — before they withdrew.
“God will punish them. All of them. For everything they did,” said Svitlana Vilna, 47.
Ruined buildings and destroyed military vehicles could be seen at the entrance to the strategic Black
Sea port city, where battles raged just days ago.
A smell of burning wood wafted through the air.
“I ask you not to forget that the situation in the Kherson region is still very dangerous,” Zelenskyy said.
According to him, a Ukrainian sapper was killed while removing a mine, while four others were injured.
The president said workers were moving to quickly restore critical infrastructure destroyed by the Russians, including water, electricity, internet and television links, as well as transport and postal services.
Kherson was one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed in September.
On Sunday, residents queued to get food, and many adults and children walked around wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
Some gathered in the city’s main square, mostly to use Starlink satellite internet and connect with relatives.
“I need to get in touch with my family,” said retired teacher Klavdia Mych, 69. “We have been without water for a week. And they say everything is mined. It is very scary.”
Viktoria Dybovska, a 30-yearold sales clerk, said the Russians “took everything with them,” adding: “They cleared out the stores.”
Oleksandr Todorchuk, founder of the organization UAnimals, said Russian troops had taken most of the local zoo’s animals to Crimea, which the Russians had annexed in 2014.
“From llamas and wolves to donkeys and squirrels,” he said on Facebook.
The city was the first major urban hub to fall after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Last Saturday, in the village of Pravdyne, outside Kherson, returning locals embraced their neighbors, with some unable to hold back tears.
“Victory, finally!” said Svitlana Galak, 43, who lost her eldest daughter in the war, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Thank God we’ve been liberated and everything will now fall into place.”
Several disabled anti-tank mines and grenades, and a number of damaged buildings, could be seen in the settlement.
While de-mining continues, a curfew has been put in place and movement in and out of the city has been limited, local authorities said.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Kyiv was establishing control over more than 200 settlements in the region.
About 200 officers were erecting roadblocks and recording “crimes of the Russian occupiers,” Ukraine’s police chief Igor Klymenko said.
But Russian troops continued to fortify defenses on the left bank of the Dnipro River, where they had withdrawn from, the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South said on Monday.
“It continues to inflict fire damage on our troops and the deoccupied settlements along the right bank of the Dnipro” with heavy artillery and mortars, it added.
Kherson’s full recapture opens a gateway for Ukraine to its namesake region, with access to both the Black Sea in the west and the Sea of Azov in the east.