Hundreds Of Graves Discovered In Izyum After Ukraine Reclaims Region From Russia

As feared, Ukrainian military forces found hundreds of graves in the region of Izyum after they were able to re-take it from Russia.

Ukraine military forces found hundreds of wooden crosses, most marked with numbers, in a forest just outside the city. According to authorities, they could start exhuming the graves as early as Friday, Sept. 16.

So far, it remains unclear what happened to the people buried in the graves. However, there are suggestions that these people may have died from shellacking or due to lack of access to healthcare, BBC reported.

It was also added by civilians that most of the bodies are speculated to be civilians. Further, it has yet to be confirmed if soldiers were among those buried in the shocking discovery.

This comes not long after speculations that more than 400 bodies were thought to be buried at the site.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, that "many places of mass burials" had been discovered in some liberated areas.

"We saw many places where people were tortured," Mr. Podolyak said. "We saw wildly frightened people who were kept without light, without food, without water, and without the right to justice. Because there was no authority there, there were only people with weapons."

The United Nations (UN) is planning to send a monitoring team to the area in the coming days to help identify the ones who died there and determine if they were civilians or from the military.

Izyum was one of the areas that were initially invaded by Russia in the early days of the current war. It was used by Moscow as a military hub that held supplies for its forces in the east.

"We want the world to know what is really happening and what the Russian occupation has led to. Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izyum... Russia leaves death everywhere," he said. "And it must be held accountable for that," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address.