Ukrainian investigators find bodies with signs of torture in Kherson-minister

Nov 17(Reuters) – Investigators in Ukraine’s recently
liberated southern Kherson region have uncovered 63 bodies with
signs of torture after Russian forces left the area, Ukraine’s
interior minister was quoted as saying early on Thursday.

“Now, 63 bodies have been discovered in Kherson region, but
we must understand that the search has only just started so many
more dungeons and burial places will be uncovered,” Interfax
Ukraine news agency quoted Denys Monastyrsky as telling national
television.

Monastyrsky said law enforcement bodies had uncovered 436
instances of war crimes during Russia’s occupation. Eleven
places of detention had been discovered, including four where
torture had been practiced.

“Investigators are currently examining them and setting down
every instance of torture. Exhumations are also taking place of
the bodies of those who were killed,” Monastyrsky told the
television, according to Interfax.

Andriy Kovalenko, a prosecutor in the Kherson regional
prosecutor’s office, told the New York Times that testimony had
been gathered on 800 detentions by Russians in the region. He
said that the most common types of abuse inflicted on detainees
were electric shocks, beatings with plastic or rubber
nightsticks, and suffocation by pinching the breathing hose on a
gas mask placed over a prisoner’s head.

Ukrainian and international investigators say what they
describe as war crimes have been committed in areas occupied by
Russian troops since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Russia denies its troops target civilians or have committed
atrocities. Mass burial sites have been found in other parts
previously occupied by Russian troops, including some with
civilian bodies showing signs of torture.

Russian forces left parts of Kherson region last week — it
had been one of the first areas seized by Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address
last Sunday, said investigators had uncovered more than 400
crimes in Kherson. He said the Russian army left behind corpses,
broken infrastructure and landmines in what he described as “the
same savagery it did in other regions”.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)