Ukrainian police on Saturday reported the discovery of three bodies with their hands tied behind their backs as Russia stepped up the shelling the east even as Washington slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ‘depravity’.
Africa Daily News, New York reports that the bodies were sighted on Friday in a pit very close to Bucha, a town close to Kyiv that has recently become synonymous with allegations of Russian war crimes.
In a statement on Saturday, the Ukrainian police said; ‘The victims’ hands were tied, cloths were covering their eyes and some were gagged. There are traces of torture on the corpses’
‘All three men had been shot in the ear’, it added.
Ukraine has also gone on to report that Russian shelling on Kharkiv, the country’s second biggest city, and in the eastern Donbas region had killed one person and injured 12 more.
‘The situation in the Kharkiv region is tough. But our military, our intelligence, have important tactical success,’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his latest televised address.
Ukrainian forces however admitted that they had recaptured the village of Ruska Lozova, near Kharkiv, that had been occupied by Russian troops for two months.
Read Also: Invasion Of Ukraine: US Sanctions On Putin’s Daughters
Hundreds of civilians were evacuated from the area.
‘It was two months of terrible fear. Nothing else, a terrible and relentless fear,’ Natalia, a 28-year-old evacuee from Ruska Lozova, told reporters after reaching Kharkiv.
‘We were in the basements without food for two months, we were eating what we had,’ said Svyatoslav, 40, who did not want to give his full name, his eyes red with fatigue.
Oleksandr Skachko, a resident of nearby Slatyne, which was also recaptured by Ukrainian troops, said 15 people from the village had been killed.
Addressing Russians, the 47-year-old said: ‘Your army has invaded our land and is killing our children. No matter what anyone says, no matter what Putin says, our people are dying here.’
Africa Daily News, New York reports that thousands of people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since the Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbour began on February 24.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Friday briefly choked with emotion as he described the destruction in Ukraine and slammed Putin’s “depravity”.
Ukrainian prosecutors say they have pinpointed more than 8,000 war crimes carried out by Russian troops and are investigating 10 Russian soldiers for suspected atrocities in Bucha.
Russia is now intensifying operations in the eastern Donbas region, making some territorial advances, and tightening its stranglehold on the devastated southern port city of Mariupol.
Africa Daily News, New York
