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- Ukraine says hundreds buried in a wooded area near Izium
- Zelenskiy says new evidence of torture at burial site
- Biden urges Putin not to use chemical and tactical nuclear weapons
- Main power line restored at Zaporizhzhia NPP – IAEA
IZIUM, Ukraine, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Russia has widened its attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine in the past week and is likely to expand further, Britain said on Sunday, as Ukrainians returning to the territory abandoned by the Russian forces were trying to find their dead.
Five civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the Donetsk region over the past day, while in Nikopol several dozen skyscrapers and private buildings, gas pipelines and power lines were damaged by Russian strikes, the governors of ‘these regions.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said investigators had discovered new evidence of torture used against some soldiers buried near Izium, one of more than 20 towns recovered in the northeastern Kharkiv region following a breakthrough by Ukrainian forces earlier this month.
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Zelenskiy said in a video address that authorities had found a mass grave containing the bodies of 17 soldiers in Izium, some of whom he said bore signs of torture.
Residents of Izium have been searching for dead relatives in a forest pit discovered last week and where emergency workers have begun exhuming the bodies. The causes of death of those at the grave site have not yet been established, although residents say some were killed in an airstrike.
Ukrainian officials said last week they had found 440 bodies in the woods near Izium. They said most of the dead were civilians and that the site showed war crimes had been committed by Russian invaders who occupied the area for months.
Oleksandr Ilienkov, head of the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office, told Reuters at the site on Friday: “One of the bodies (found) has evidence of a ligature pattern and a rope around his neck, with his hands tied.” , adding that there were signs of violent death for other bodies, but they will undergo a forensic examination.
Valery Marchenko, the mayor of Izium, told state television on Sunday that “the exhumation is underway, the graves are being dug and all the remains are being transported to Kharkiv.”
He added that “the works will continue for another two weeks, there are many burials. No new ones have been found yet, but the services are looking for possible burials”.
Moscow regularly denies committing atrocities in the war or deliberately targeting civilians. The Kremlin has not publicly commented on the discovery of the graves.
The head of the pro-Russian administration who left the area earlier this month accused the Ukrainians of staging the atrocities in Izium. “I haven’t heard anything about the burials,” Vitaly Ganchev told Rossiya-24 state television.
Police and experts work at a mass burial site during an exhumation, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in the city of Izium, recently liberated by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, September 17, 2022. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has not responded to the accusations, but on Friday he played down Ukraine’s swift counteroffensive, casting Russia’s invasion as a necessary step to prevent what he said was a Western plot to break up Russia . Read more
In an intelligence update on Twitter, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia had launched several thousand long-range missiles against Ukraine since the start of the invasion.
“However, in the last seven days Russia has increased its targeting of civilian infrastructure even where it is unlikely to see any immediate effect,” the ministry said in a tweet.
The strikes have hit targets such as a power grid and a dam, he added.
“As it faces setbacks on the front line, Russia has likely expanded the locations it is willing to attack in an attempt to directly undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people and government,” the ministry said.
BIDEN WARNS RUSSIA
Putin has said that Moscow would respond more forcefully if its troops were put under more pressure, raising concerns that it may at some point use unconventional means such as small nuclear or chemical weapons.
US President Joe Biden, asked what he would say to Putin if he were considering using such weapons, replied: “No. No. No. It would change the face of warfare like nothing since World War II.” He made the comments in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” a clip of which was released by CBS on Saturday. Read more
Some military analysts have said Russia could also stage a nuclear incident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for shelling around the plant that has damaged buildings and disrupted power lines needed to keep it cool and safe.
One of the plant’s four main power lines has been repaired and is re-supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Saturday. Read more
Ukraine has also launched a major offensive to regain territory in the south, where it hopes to trap thousands of Russian troops cut off from supplies on the west bank of the Dnipro River, and retake Kherson. Kherson is the only major Ukrainian city that Russia has captured intact since the start of the war.
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Reporting by Reuters Bureaus Writing by Lincoln Feast and Raissa Kasolowsky Editing by William Mallard and Frances Kerry
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