Mass grave found in forest near recaptured city, says Zelensky

UKRAINIAN authorities found a mass burial site near a recaptured north-eastern city previously occupied by Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

“A mass grave of people was found in Izium in the Kharkiv region,” he said in a nightly televised address.

Associated Press journalists saw the site in a forest outside Izium.

Amid the trees were hundreds of graves with simple wooden crosses, most of them marked only with numbers. A larger grave bore a marker saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. Ukrainian investigators were already at work examining the site with metal detectors for any hidden explosives.

Oleg Kotenko, an official with the

Ukrainian ministry tasked with reintegrating occupied territories, said videos posted by Russian soldiers on social media indicated there were likely more than 17 bodies in the mass grave.

“We haven’t counted them yet, but I think there are more than 25 or even 30,” he said.

One resident said that among the hundreds buried in individual graves were dozens of adults and children killed in a Russian air strike on an apartment building.

Meanwhile, Sergei Bolvinov, a senior investigator for Ukrainian police in the eastern Kharkiv region, told Sky News a pit containing more than 440 bodies was discovered near Izium after Kyiv’s forces swept in.