A Ukrainian serviceman walks among graves of mostly unidentified civilians and Ukrainian soldiers at an improvised cemetery in the town of Izium. (REUTERS Photo)
The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday it plans to send investigators to the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum, where hundreds of graves were discovered following the withdrawal of Russian occupiers.
The find is shocking and the cause of death of each of the deceased must be investigated, a spokeswoman for the UN agency in Geneva said.
Speaking on Thursday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had described it as a "mass burial site" in a wooded area. The Ministry of Defence said 440 unmarked graves had been found in one area.
Isyum had been captured by Russian troops at the end of March. Last week, under pressure from Ukrainian counteroffensives, they were driven out.
Oleh Kotenko, the government's commissioner for disappeared persons, cautioned that comparisons should not be made to the atrocities uncovered in Bucha, a suburb of Kiev, at the end of March.
"I don't want to call this Bucha: Here people were buried, let's say, in a more civilized way," Kotenko told Current Time TV.
Hundreds of civilians, some with signs of torture, were found in Bucha after the Russians withdrew. Bucha has since been seen as a symbol of the most serious war crimes in Russia's war on Ukraine, which began on February 24.
