Liberated city of a thousand horrors
As Putin forces flee, shocking civilian death toll is laid bare
WAR crimes investigators in Ukraine yesterday began to uncover the horrors left behind in areas recently liberated from Russian troops.
At least 1,000 civilians had been found dead in the recaptured city of Izyum, officials said.
Russian forces captured the transport hub after a four-week battle in April, but fled in the face of a surprise Ukrainian counter-offensive last week.
Anton Gerashchenko, a senior adviser to the Ukrainian government, said at least 1,000 people died in the heavily bombarded settlement from ‘shelling, hunger, lack of medicine’.
He added yesterday: ‘Izyum is two Buchas in the number of civilian victims,’ referring to the Kyiv suburb where an estimated 450 people died during Russia’s initial advance.
Mr Gerashchenko said: ‘The town where my father was born and buried, lies in ruins.
‘Russian shelling ruined two entrances in one building. All 47 people who lived there died – women, children, elderly. These horrible crimes against humanity have no justification or expiration date.’
As investigators started to find makeshift graves, one local official described how Vladimir Putin’s forces had tried to cover their tracks.
Maksim Strelnikov, head of Izyum city council, said: ‘The occupiers here, as in other places, committed war crimes and tried to hide them.
‘According to the information that we have, 1,000 civilians at minimum were killed as a result of military actions.
‘Unfortunately, many more people have suffered because they lacked access to timely medical care.’ Ukraine’s state prosecutor has sent investigators across the more than 3,000 square miles of land Kyiv has recaptured in an operation that began last week.
They have already exhumed bodies of civilians they say bear signs of being tortured or summarily executed. They also claim to have discovered ‘torture chambers’ used by Russians to interrogate civilians with electric shocks.
A mass burial site containing 440 graves was among the horrifying discoveries in Izyum. Serhii Bolvinov, chief police investigator for the Kharkiv region, told Sky News: ‘We know some were killed, some died because of artillery fire, so-called mine explosion traumas. Some died because of airstrikes. Also we have information that a lot of bodies have not been not identified yet.
‘So the reasons of death will be established during the investigations.’ In the nearby village of Hrakove, locals showed teams the graves of two young men they say they were forced to bury by Russian soldiers. Each had a gunshot wound to the back of the head and their ears cut off.
It comes after Putin tried to flood president Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town by hitting a major dam with cruise missiles. Streets in Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine, turned into rivers after the dam and a pumping station were hit.
Mr Zelensky said: ‘You are fighting with civilians. You are weaklings. Scoundrels who fled the battleground to throw things in from afar.’
Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the area’s military administration, said last night work to repair the dam was under way and ‘flooding was receding’.
City authorities battled to contain damage, while 5,000 people were evacuated and 112 homes were destroyed.
Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian government’s top human rights official, said the strikes show Russia ‘is a terrorist country’.