Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the northeastern city of Izium had the newest position where Russians left mass graves.
Zelenskyy said Thursday that the Ukrainian government had discovered a mass burial near Izium in the recently retaken Kharkiv region.
“Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izium,” Zelenskyy said in his televised address every night, adding that confirmation will most likely come on Friday. “Russia leaves death everywhere. And he will be held accountable. The world will have to make Russia assume a genuine duty in this war. “
The Associated Press reported that its reporters saw the site in a forest outside Izium on Thursday. A mass grave had a marker indicating it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers. It was surrounded by piles of individual graves with only crosses to mark them. .
Sergei Bolvinov, chief investigator for Ukrainian police in the Kharkiv region, told Britain’s Sky News that a grave with more than 440 bodies was discovered near Izium after the Russians were expelled. He described the tomb as “one of the largest burial sites of all liberated cities. “
TURNING POINT IN UKRAINE WAR: As Russia concedes defeat in Kharkov, Ukraine regains ground and confidence
Latest developments:
Biden’s leadership has said it will send another $600 million in military aid to Ukraine to bolster Kyiv’s counteroffensive with some of the same weapons that helped defeat Russian forces in parts of the east and south.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was not seriously injured when his vehicle collided with another early Thursday after a stopover on the battlefield, his spokesman said. The motive force of the other vehicle received first aid and was taken away by ambulance, the spokesman said.
Airstrike sirens sounded twice in Kyiv as Zelenskyy met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, who reiterated the EU for Ukraine.
The board of governors of the 35-nation U. N. atomic company on Thursday approved a decision calling on Russia to immediately end its run at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, where bombing of the facility and nearby spaces in recent weeks has raised fears of an imaginable radioactive disaster.
► NBA champion Golden State Warriors superstar guard Stephen Curry says his “contacts in Biden’s management have turned down an offer of help” to efforts to free WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian captivity.
Tensions erupted Thursday in Russian villages bordering the Kharkiv region as the roar of Ukrainian army firepower approached the border.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said citizens were wounded when Ukrainian shells hit a border village, and that personal homes, farm buildings and lines of force were partially destroyed. Vyacheslav Gladkov also ordered the evacuation of several villages.
Ukraine has regained thousands of kilometers and more than three hundred villages and towns this month. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russian troops fleeing Ukraine’s advance are concentrating on the Belgorod border, where other Russian troops are preventing them from crossing.
“They have no communication with the command,” the ministry said in a statement. “There is no food or ammunition. “
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, which reported from Belgorod in recent days, found citizens who expressed concern and unease. One instructor said she told academics who heard missiles that the noise was just thunder.
Some citizens fled to Belgorod from Ukrainian villages after running for Russian administrations, only for Russians to leave Ukrainian cities. Now they worry about the revenge of the Ukrainian government that betrayed them.
President Joe Biden will hold separate meetings Friday at the White House with others close to WNBA star Brittney Griner and Michigan security leader Paul Whelan, The Associated Press reported, citing senior management officials.
This will be the first face-to-face contact between the president and the circle of relatives of the two Americans held captive in Russia, through the U. S. government. U. S. to be “unjustly detained. “
Biden’s management said in July that it had made a “substantial proposal” to bring them home in a prisoner exchange, but so far the efforts have been unsuccessful.
Griner has been detained in Russia since February on drug-related charges. She was sentenced last month to nine years in prison after pleading guilty and getting her sentence right. Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges that he and his circle of relatives say are false. Bill Richardson, a former U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, traveled to Moscow this week to discuss his release.
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that China has “questions and concerns” about Moscow’s war in Ukraine in his meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Uzbekistan on Thursday.
“We highly appreciate the balanced position of our Chinese friends in the context of the Ukraine crisis,” Putin said, taking the opportunity to criticize the West. “We welcome your questions and considerations on this. “
Putin’s occasional mention of China’s concerns comes as Beijing worries about the effect of oil price volatility and economic uncertainty resulting from a war that lasted only about seven months and saw Russia suffer embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield.
China’s economy has already experienced a slowdown this year, largely due to its strict anti-COVID measures. Russia has particularly increased its energy sales to China in recent months, as European purchases have declined due to sanctions.
Xi made no reference to Ukraine in his public remarks at the assembly on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security alliance created to counter U. S. influence. The alliance also includes India, Pakistan and four former Soviet countries in Central Asia.
Russia’s withdrawal from the Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces have consolidated its newly regained territory, has in some cases been ordered, but at times troops “fled in obvious panic,” the British Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update.
In the process, the Russians left behind valuable apparatus “essential to enable the flavor of Russia’s artillery-centered warfare,” the ministry said, concluding that such abandonment illustrates “localized disorders in command and control. “
Contribute: The Associated Press