Ukraine Searches for Its Dead at Russian Occupation Burial Site

IZIUM, Ukraine (Reuters) – Dressed in white protective suits and wearing rubber gloves, Ukrainian emergency workers on Saturday dug up more bodies from a wooded burial site in territory recently recaptured from Russian forces, while townspeople looked for dead relatives.

Ukraine says hundreds are buried at the site discovered this week, including at least 17 Ukrainian servicemen found in a mass grave on Friday and others who may be civilians buried in individual graves.

The causes of death have not yet been established, although residents say some of the graves near the town of Izium were of people who died in an airstrike. Ukrainian authorities have said at least one of the bodies had tied hands and rope marks on the neck.

Moscow has not commented on the discovery of the graves. It regularly denies committing atrocities in the war or targeting civilians.

Reuters saw workers carefully exhume at least five graves with shovels, while police experts and investigators documented the findings on camera and inspected the bodies on the sandy soil between trunks of pine trees.

“Exhumations are under way. Their identities are currently not known,” said Roman Kasianenko, a regional prosecutor. He said three bodies dug up on Friday had been identified.

Clutching a neatly written list of names and numbers, resident Volodymyr Kolesnyk stepped between graves looking for relatives he said were killed in an airstrike on an apartment building shortly before the town fell in April, as the invaders swept through the northeastern region of Kharkiv.

Ukraine last week took back dozens of towns and villages in the area in a surprise counterattack.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov on Friday said he had been aware of mass deaths when shells hit a five-story apartment block shortly before the Russian occupation. In May, a Ukrainian military official said more than 40 people died in an attack in the town.