According to regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko’s online post on Friday, Ukrainian officials have discovered a mass grave in the newly recaptured eastern town of Lyman, however it is unknown how many dead it contains.
Separately, a senior police officer was quoted by the Ukrinform news agency as claiming that the grave had 180 remains. On Saturday, Ukrainian forces retook Lyman from Russian forces in the Donetsk area.
Russian military have been accused by Ukrainian authorities of carrying out crimes in seized territory; this accusation is refuted by Moscow.
Following its liberation, the northeastern village of Izium had a burial site excavated last month, revealing the remains of 436 individuals. Local authorities reported that the majority seemed to have perished violently.
Officials in Lyman have discovered “a mass grave where, according to local intelligence, there may be both military and civilians,” Donetsk Governor Kyrylenko stated on Telegram. The precise amount has not yet been determined.
He said that 200 graves at a second burial site, where corpses of civilians had been interred, had also been discovered. His remarks left it unclear as to how or when they had passed away.
