Russia’s war crimes: new burials of Ukrainians discovered in de-occupied Donetsk region

This is reported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Locals, military personnel, and special search teams are assisting in the search for graves in the de-occupied territories. Since the start of de-occupation, 385 bodies have been found in the region, out of which 309 were civilians. The victims of Russian aggression include 174 men, 117 women, and 6 children. The gender of another 12 people is yet to be determined.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that for the past six months, police have been discovering new graves and unidentified corpses in the de-occupied territories. Law enforcement officers are examining the shelling sites, interviewing local residents, searching for relatives of the deceased, identifying witnesses, and reconstructing the events. The investigators aim to establish the identity and fate of each person killed.

In the village of Bohorodychne, which was almost completely destroyed by Russian troops, two elderly women and a man were exhumed from a civilian burial site in one of the yards. In Lyman, the bodies of three more civilian men were exhumed.

Following the de-occupation of Lyman, a mass grave containing dead Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen was discovered in the city cemetery. Painstaking work to identify each of them began.

The identification work is ongoing, and so far, 282 out of 385 people have been identified.