445 bodies are currently being exhumed in the recently liberated city. While the exact circumstances of the death are still being investigated, the occupation is also leaving scars elsewhere in Ukraine.
About 200 crosses and the remains of 445 people were found in a forest near Izyum.
Bucha and Irpin, where hundreds of Ukrainians were murdered, raped and tortured, have become a symbol of Russia’s reign of terror. President Zelensky immediately drew similar parallels after the authorities found the graves of 445 people in the recently liberated city of Izyum: “Bucha, Mariupol and now, unfortunately, also Izyum”, he said in his video address on Thursday. “Russia leaves death everywhere.”
The images of mounds of earth marked with simple wooden crosses in the middle of trees give an idea of the human suffering that Russia’s invasion brought with it. According to the Ukrainian authorities, most of the graves are individual graves, which are usually inscribed with numbers instead of family names. A mass grave is known to contain the remains of about two dozen fallen Ukrainian soldiers.
Died violently
The circumstances under which the people, who otherwise mostly came from the local population, died are only partially known. The examination of the burial place by coroners and police specialists has only just begun.
A satellite image from March shows the cemetery, which has been in existence for decades.
Kharkiv Oblast’s chief investigator said some of the victims were shot dead, while others may have died in the fighting. Reuters reported on Friday, citing anonymous witnesses, that bodies had been exhumed with a rope around their necks and their hands tied. An official confirmation has not yet been made.
The Ukrainian Missing Persons Commissioner, Oleh Kotenko, cautiously said: “I think the majority died during the shelling of the city, we realized that from the data: people were killed when the Russians shelled the city with artillery.” This is shown not only by the available death books, but also by the fact that the Ukrainian authorities became aware of the graves through a video published by the Russians in the spring. The first battle for Izyum had begun on March 3rd. As elsewhere, the occupiers paid little heed to civilian infrastructure or even deliberately targeted it.
What is clear, however, is that the tomb is just one particularly large one among many. Elsewhere in the Liberated Area of Kharkiv Oblast, authorities have found 50 bodies of people who died violently. The Ukrainian police also report that 10 interrogation rooms have been found in the region so far, in which torture was also used. In the past week, 204 cases of possible war crimes have been initiated.
Members of the Ukrainian Civil Protection Service help exhume the bodies.
Random Killings
For Oleksandra Romantsova, this preliminary information coincides with experiences in other regions such as Kyiv or Sumi. “Every time the Russians occupied an area, they killed people. For many reasons – because they didn’t like someone, because they were in a bad mood or because they were drunk, because of some order,” explains the head of the Center for Civil Rights in Kyiv.
Your non-governmental organization has been meticulously documenting suspected war crimes since February 24, including in the occupied territories. 19,282 cases have accumulated as of Friday, about two-thirds of them in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions, all of which are at least partially occupied. The primary sources are the accounts of displaced people, which now have to be investigated on the ground in the liberated areas. Romantsova expects another wave of investigations once people return to their hometowns or gain access to Ukrainian investigators in liberated villages. “What we’re seeing now is just the beginning.”
However, Romantsova points out that the Ukrainian authorities lack the specialists to conduct the investigations. “We need international help for this.” Ukraine also gets this: According to a report by CNN, the UN decided to send a team to Izyum. Also the International Criminal Court in The Hague has been investigating war crimes since March in the country.
As long as no more details from Izyum are known, the Kiev resident only cautiously comments on the comparisons with Bucha. Oleh Kotenko had rejected this. “I don’t want to call this a boucha,” he said. People were buried in a more civilized way. For Romantsova, on the other hand, the main questions are: “Did the Russians shoot at schools with artillery, as they did in Bucha, and use people as human shields? Or were there certain rules in Isjum, despite the occupation?” She has not given up hope that the Russians are also capable of learning processes. However, she is not very optimistic.
