Ukrainian police find more than 500 civilian bodies and torture chambers in Kharkiv

A police officer looks through plastic bags containing the bodies of a man and a woman, found in a forest not far from the village of Borowa in Ukraine’s Kharkov region, amid Russia’s military incursion on Friday.Photo by Sergey Kozlov/EPA-EFE

This allegation was also made by the head of the regional police investigation unit, Serhii Bolnivov, In a comment to CNN.

Yening said 1,350 civilians had been killed in Kharkiv province since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, “a number that is increasing almost every day”.

Many of the bodies found on Friday showed “signs of violent death,” including gunshot wounds, blast injuries and signs of torture, he said.

Fifteen bodies were allegedly found with ropes around their necks, hands tied behind their backs, bullet wounds to their knees and broken ribs.

“In almost all the big cities and towns where Russian troops are stationed, they have set up such places to detain civilians and prisoners of war and torture them,” Bolvinov told CNN.

He claimed that more than 20 suspected Russian “torture chambers” were discovered in Kharkiv as Ukrainian forces moved quickly to liberate the area from Russian occupation.

“We must cancel the occupation of all the land that the Russian occupiers are trying to keep for themselves,” Ukraine’s president Vladimir Zelensky Say in his nightly address. “Only then can we return full force to international law.”

This week alone, Ukraine liberated 300 square miles of territory in the eastern part of the country, including 29 settlements, Zelensky said.

“This week also saw good results in southern Ukraine — we are liberating our lands and our people every day from a pseudo-referendum,” Zelensky said.

British Ministry of Defence, which provides intelligence updates throughout the war, says in a statement On Friday, Ukrainians were defeating Russian troops with their own equipment.

The MoD said: “Repurposed and captured Russian equipment now accounts for a significant portion of Ukrainian military hardware.”

British intelligence suggests Ukraine may have seized at least 440 Russian main battle tanks and around 650 other armoured vehicles since the invasion.

“The failure of the Russian aircrew to destroy complete equipment prior to evacuation or surrender underlines their poor training and low levels of combat discipline,” the MoD said.

“As Russian formations are under severe pressure in multiple sectors and troop morale is getting lower, Russia will likely continue to lose heavy weapons.”