One said it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. Amid the trees were hundreds of simple wooden crosses, most marked only with numbers. Those injuries corresponded to the descriptions of the pain inflicted upon the survivors.ĪP journalists also saw bodies with bound wrists at the mass grave. All but one were civilians.Īt a mass grave site created by the Russians and discovered in the woods of Izium, at least 30 of the 447 bodies recently excavated bore visible marks of torture - bound hands, close gunshot wounds, knife wounds and broken limbs, according to the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office. The AP also confirmed eight men were killed under torture in Russian custody, according to survivors and families. One battered, unconscious Ukrainian soldier was displayed to his wife to force her to provide information she simply didn’t have. Two of the men were taken repeatedly and abused. The AP spoke to 15 survivors of Russian torture in the Kharkiv region, as well as two families whose loved ones disappeared into Russian hands. They included a deep sunless pit in a residential compound with dates carved in the brick wall, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine and rotting food, a medical clinic, a police station and a kindergarten. Izium served as a hub for Russian soldiers for nearly seven months, during which they established torture sites everywhere.īased on accounts of survivors and police, AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the town and gained access to five of them. While torture was also evident in Bucha, that devastated Kyiv suburb was only occupied for a month. Russian torture in Izium was arbitrary, widespread and absolutely routine for both civilians and soldiers throughout the city, an Associated Press investigation has found. Andriy Kotsar would be captured and tortured twice more by Russian forces in Izium, and the pain would be even worse. The brutal encounter at the end of March was just the start. “We can shoot you any time, bury you a half-meter underground and that’s it.” “No one needs you,” the commander taunted. Before they let him go, they took away his passport and Ukrainian military ID - all he had to prove his existence - and made sure he knew exactly how worthless his life was. Then they beat him, over and over: Legs, arms, a hammer to the knees, all accompanied by furious diatribes against Ukraine. The first time the Russian soldiers caught him, they tossed him bound and blindfolded into a trench covered with wooden boards for days on end.
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