Ukrainian authorities have found a mass burial site of more than 440 bodies in the eastern city of Izium that was recaptured from Russian forces, a regional police chief has said.
Serhiy Bolvinov, the chief police investigator for Kharkiv region, told Sky News some of the people had been killed by shelling and airstrikes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy likened the discovery to what happened in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, saying in a Thursday night video address: “Russia is leaving death behind it everywhere and must be held responsible.”
“The necessary procedures have already begun there. More information – clear, verifiable information – should be available tomorrow,” he said.
Ukraine and its allies have accused the Russian forces of perpetrating war crimes in Bucha in the early stages of the February invasion by Russian forces.
The wealthy north-west Kyiv commuter town of Bucha is synonymous with Russian war crimes, where hundreds of bodies have been found. After a month of fighting, Bucha was one of the first places that Moscow pulled back from to reconcentrate its forces on Ukraine’s east.
Bolvinov said forensic investigations would be carried out on every body.
“I can say it is one of the largest burial sites in a big town in liberated [areas] … 440 bodies were buried in one place,” he said. “Some died because of artillery fire … some died because of air strikes.”
An Associated Press journalists saw the site on Thursday 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.
Investigators with metal detectors were scanning the site for any hidden explosives.
Oleg Kotenko, an official with the Ukrainian ministry tasked with reintegrating occupied territories, said videos that Russian soldiers posted on social media indicated there were likely more than 17 bodies in the grave.
“We haven’t counted them yet, but I think there are more than 25 or even 30,” he said.
Izium resident Sergei Gorodko said that among the hundreds buried in individual graves were dozens of adults and children killed in a Russian airstrike on an apartment building.
He said he pulled some of them out of the rubble “with my own hands”.
Thousands of Russian troops fled Izium at the weekend. There was no immediate public comment from Russia.
Dozens of bombed-out apartment buildings in Izium’s city centre lie derelict along roads covered with the debris of what has been one of this war’s most fierce battles, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,000 people, according to Ukrainian officials.
On Wednesday the city, described as a second Mariupol because of the heavy bombardments it has suffered, was visited by the outside world for the first time after its recapture.
Russia has repeatedly denied it targets civilians or has committed war crimes.
With Reuters