Izium, Ukraine CNN —
Even heavy rains could not erase the smell of death in the pine grove of Izium on Friday afternoon as Ukrainian investigators made their way through a mass burial found in the eastern city of Ukraine after its recovery from Russian forces.
Ukraine’s defense ministry said at least 440 “unmarked” graves had been found in the city in recent days. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Friday that some of the bodies found in Izium showed “signs of torture”, blaming Russia for what he called “cruelty and terrorism”.
Zelensky posted a photograph of the exhumation of bodies in progress at a mass burial site near the city of Izium. In a text accompanying the photograph on his Telegram channel, Zelensky wrote: “The whole world should see this. A world in which there should be no cruelty and terrorism. But all this is there. And his name it’s Russia.”
Izium came under intense Russian artillery fire in April. The city, which is located near the border between Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, became an important center for the invading army during five months of occupation. Ukrainian forces regained control of the city on Saturday, dealing a strategic blow to the Russian military assault in the east.
When CNN arrived at the mass burial site Friday afternoon, officials were transporting body bags, including one that appeared to contain something very small, into a refrigerated truck.
Most of the graves at the burial site are individual graves, with wooden crosses placed at the top of the earthen mounds. Some with handwritten names and numbers. One had a number as high as 398. Another with the name of an 82-year-old man. An official at the site told CNN that investigations should determine when those people died.
Further down in the woods is what looked like an old military position, with tank positions dug deep into the ground.
A police officer at the scene told CNN that the site is a mass grave where 17 bodies were found.
“There are civilian and military bodies here ahead,” Igor Garmash, a crime scene investigator, said of the specific part of the site he was examining, pointing to a nearby spot.
“More than 20 bodies have been examined and sent for further investigation,” he told CNN.
Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications said Thursday that some of the graves discovered in Izium were “fresh” and that the bodies buried there were “mostly civilians.”
Dmytro Lubinets, the human rights commissioner of the Ukrainian Parliament, said in a video statement from the site that “there is a whole family by my side… This is a young family… The father was born in 1988 , the wife was born in 1991. , their youngest daughter was born in 2016.”
He said local people told investigators the family had been killed in a Russian airstrike.
“We also saw a mass burial here of Ukrainian army soldiers. The way they were buried, you’ll see evidence that their hands were tied, that they were killed at close range,” Lubinets said.
An Izium resident who lives across the street from the mass burial site told CNN that the Russians first hit a nearby city cemetery with an airstrike and then moved on.
“They brought their special machines. They dug trenches for their vehicles. We just heard how they were destroying the forest,” Nadezhda Kalinichenko told CNN.
He said he tried not to go out during the time the city was under Russian occupation because he was too scared.
“When they left, I don’t know if there was a fight or not. A week ago we heard a lot of heavy trucks,” he said.
Zelensky said during his speech on Thursday that Russia must be held responsible for the deaths there and in other cities where large numbers of bodies had been found.
“Bucha, Mariupol and now, unfortunately, Izium… Russia leaves death everywhere. And he must be responsible for it. The world must hold Russia responsible for this war. We will do everything for this,” he added.
The governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said that “the scale of the crimes committed by the invaders in Izium is enormous. This is brutal, bloody terror.”
Syniehubov said that “450 bodies of civilians with traces of violent death and torture were buried in a forest belt. It is difficult to imagine such a thing in the 21st century, but now it is a tragic reality in Izium.”
Syniehubov said that among the bodies exhumed on Friday, “99 percent showed signs of violent death.”
“There are several bodies with their hands tied behind their backs and one person is buried with a rope around their neck. Obviously, these people were tortured and executed. There are also children among those buried,” he said.
Zelensky speaks to CNN about Ukraine’s counter-offensive against Russia
Meanwhile, Oleh Kotenko, Ukraine’s commissioner for missing persons, said in a Telegram post that search operations for the remains of “fallen heroes” are being carried out cautiously across the region.
“The biggest problem is that some areas are still exploited. Despite this, we continue to work, because we need to bring every hero home so that the families can honor the memory of the soldiers who died for Ukraine in a dignified way as soon as possible,” said Kotenko.
Zelensky visited Izium on Wednesday and told reporters he was “surprised” by the number of “destroyed buildings” and “killed people” left behind by the Russian occupation.
In his late-night speech on Friday, Zelensky said the exhumation of bodies at the mass burial site was continuing and that it was still “too early to talk about the total number of people buried there.”
He added that investigations were underway in all areas of the country that had been recaptured from Russian forces and that several civilians, including foreigners, who had been held captive in occupied cities and towns had been found alive.
Among the rescued foreigners were seven Sri Lankan students, he said. They were studying at the Kupyansk Medical Faculty, but Russian soldiers captured them in March and held them in a basement. “Only now, after the liberation of Kharkiv region, these people were rescued and are receiving proper medical care,” Zelensky said.
A United Nations source told CNN that a team from the UN’s human rights watchdog, OCHR, would go to Izium and the surrounding areas as soon as possible.
The war crimes investigation team may follow after that, the source said. Its specific fate remains unclear at this time.
Moscow was using Izium as a launch pad for attacks to the south in the Donetsk and Kupyansk region, about 48 kilometers (30 mi) north of Izium, and as a rail hub to resupply its forces.
Zelensky also thanked foreign governments for sending investigators and prosecutors to investigate alleged human rights violations by occupying forces in Ukraine, adding that all occupied areas would eventually return.
Ukrainian forces have been on a sustained military offensive, especially in the northeastern and southern regions of the country.
Zelensky said on Tuesday that 8,000 square kilometers (3,088 square miles) of territory had been liberated by Ukrainian forces so far this month, with about half of the area still undergoing “stabilization” measures.