The Kharkiv region has been fought over since the beginning of the war, and Ukrainian troops finally managed to recapture it. But that doesn’t mean an end to the hostilities either. Ukrainian sources report shots and deaths.
Even after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kharkiv region a week ago, the shelling in the region continues, according to Ukrainian sources. The enemy fired heavily on the liberated cities of Izyum and Chuhuiv, destroying residential and commercial buildings, as well as gas stations and production facilities, Ukrainian regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said in his blog on the Telegram news service.
An eleven-year-old girl was killed in the shelling in Chuhuiv. When driving in the region, two women were fatally injured by a tank shell. The evening before, Sinegubov also informed that around 60 bodies had been recovered from the mass grave site in a forest near the city of Izyum. Most women and men were therefore civilians. Many Ukrainian soldiers were among the dead. Most died violent deaths, he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that some of the dead also showed signs of torture. The exhumation of the dead should continue on Sunday. The United Nations also want to visit the site to help determine the exact causes of death.
According to Ukrainian authorities, there are more than 440 bodies in the forest in Izyum. According to initial findings, people are said to have died when Russia fired heavily on the city at the end of March. The find is repeatedly compared with the one in Bucha. At the end of March, hundreds of dead civilians, some with signs of torture and their hands tied, were found in the Kiev suburb of Bucha after the withdrawal of Russian troops. Since then, Bucha has been considered a symbol of the most serious war crimes in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.