Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that investigators have found evidence of 400 war crimes committed by Russian forces in areas of Kherson abandoned by Moscow’s forces as they retreated from the strategic southern region.
In his nightly video address on Sunday, the President said: “Investigators have recorded more than 400 Russian war crimes; bodies of civilians and military personnel who had been killed are being found.
“The atrocities the Russian army has left behind in Kherson Oblast (region) are the same as (atrocities committed) in other parts of our country that it was able to occupy.”
It was not immediately possible to verify Zelenskyy’s allegations. Russia denies its troops intentionally target civilians.
Mass graves have been found in several places across Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion, including the bodies of civilians showing evidence of torture discovered in the northeastern Kharkiv region and in Bucha, near the capital Kyiv. Ukraine has accused Russian troops of committing the crimes.
A United Nations commission in October said war crimes had been committed in Ukraine and that Russian forces were responsible for the “vast majority” of human rights violations in the early weeks of the war.
