The bodies of 534 civilians were found on Ukrainian territory once occupied by Russian troops, Serhii Bolvinov, head of the investigation department of the Kharkiv regional police, said on Thursday. Nineteen of the bodies belonged to young people and 226 to women, he said. Said.
The tally includes remains found in shallow graves last month at a mass burial site in Izyum, where many bodies were found after Russian troops were driven from the domain through a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Bolvinov said the government knew of 22 sites that Russian troops used as torture chambers when they occupied the area.
“In each and every major city and agreement on which the infantrymen of the Russian army were based, they set up such posts to detain civilians and prisoners of war, where they were tortured,” Bolvinov said. Wires to electrocute someone’s body and cause pain. Violent blows with sticks and other objects. There is also evidence of nail pulling and other terrible things, and the use of a fuel mask is added to dampen breathing. “
He said the most recent torture chamber was discovered by Ukrainian investigators in the domain permanently occupied by a dozen soldiers. It is in the basement of a space in Pisky-Radkivsky, a village near which Russian troops have located their headquarters.
The Ukrainian detainees, who were captured, among other things, for violating the curfew or for having been accused of detecting Ukrainian attacks, were detained and tortured in the basement, which is about two and a half meters long and one and a half meters wide.
“We have witnesses who give us data about the fact that they heard other people screaming, asking for help, being released and other people asked to go to the bathroom from this basement,” Bolvinov said. “Sometimes, after the screams, citizens would hear gunshots, and the screams would prevent after that. “
In the basement, investigators discovered blindfolds, ropes, a, military jackets, written notes about prisoners’ “confessions,” a telephone, a fuel mask and a plastic container filled with dentures and teeth. Identify who they belong to and whether they were taken from a local dentist.
Mariia Kashchenko contributed to this report.