More bodies of mostly civilians, including two children, were found in the city of Izium in eastern Ukraine, officials said Monday.
Separately, two more bodies were discovered in Bucha, the town on the outskirts of Kyiv that was the scene of mass atrocities at the start of the war, authorities said.
In Izium, 146 bodies of mostly civilians were exhumed from a mass burial site, according to Oleh Synehubov, head of the Kharkiv region civil-military administration.
“Some of the dead have signs of a violent death, and there are bodies with tied hands and traces of torture. The dead also have mine-explosive injuries, shrapnel and stab wounds,” Synehubov said, adding that all of the bodies have been sent for forensic examination to determine the final cause of death.
On Sunday, Izium Mayor Valerii Marchenko said the exhumation of bodies would continue for another two weeks.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said at least 440 “unmarked” graves were found in the city in recent days and on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that some of the bodies showed “signs of torture,” blaming Russia for what he called “cruelty and terrorism.” Russia has dismissed Ukraine’s accusations of war crimes as a “lie.”
In Bucha, volunteers found two more “victims of Russian aggression” in civilian clothing, according to a Facebook post on Monday from the Bucha City Council. The bodies were discovered while volunteers were patrolling the forest around the Warsaw Highway near the Vorzel settlement.
Some background: Bucha’s name became a byword for war crimes after accounts of summary executions, brutality and indiscriminate shelling emerged in the wake of Russia’s hasty retreat on March 31.
