Ukraine’s stunning counteroffensive liberated thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory from Russian control. Now Ukrainians are uncovering mass graves and evidence of torture.
Summary
Ukraine’s stunning counteroffensive liberated thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory from Russian control. Now Ukrainians are uncovering mass graves and evidence of torture.
- Ukrainian civilians have begun to return to their newly liberated hometowns, only to find ruins, and in many cases, the bodies of their friends and neighbors.
- The Ukrainian government said they found at least 450 bodies, likely many more, buried in mass graves near the newly-liberated town of Izium.
- At least 17 Ukrainian soldiers were found in the mass grave, and some of the bodies had evidence of torture.
- A Ukrainian human rights official said Friday more than 1,000 people had been tortured and killed by Russian forces in the northern Kharkiv region alone.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the atrocities war crimes. The White House said reports of mass graves in Izium were “horrifying.”
- On Sunday, Ukrainian forces announced that they had found at least ten “torture chambers” in the retaken territory near the Russian border.
- Russian forces continued to bombard civilian infrastructure on Sunday following their battlefield setbacks.
- CNN reported Ukraine continues to consolidate territory in the east and heavy fighting continues in the southern Kherson region.
- NBC News highlighted one case of alleged war crimes being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutors: Russian soldiers forced a ten-year-old boy to watch as they murdered his parents.
- The New York Times wrote, “Torture chambers in the basements of police precincts and school buildings. Witness testimony of abuse, humiliation, and murder. Seven foreign medical students from Sri Lanka were held captive found alive and freed. A forest filled with graves. Across the vast stretch of thousands of square miles of land newly reclaimed by Ukrainian forces in the northeastern Kharkiv region, accusations of Russian atrocities by Ukrainian officials mounted on Saturday as Ukraine stepped up its calls for a global response.”
- The Telegraph interviewed Ukrainian civilians who alleged Russian forces extorted civilians for money to recover the bodies of their murdered kin under the threat of dumping their bodies in mass graves.
- Fox News reported that Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping questioned Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in a face-to-face- meeting over his “concerns” with Russia’s war in Ukraine.
- The Wall Street Journal reported that Russian forces are increasingly attacking civilian targets, “even when no immediate military benefit could be perceived” to “undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
