The Times - UK (2022-04-04)

the times | Monday April 4 2022 2GM 7

News

Investigators far from Ukraine are

using satellite images to identify mass

graves where Russians are believed to

have buried the victims of civilian

massacres in areas they occupied.

After evidence of massacres by

retreating Russians at Bucha, on the

northwestern outskirts of Kyiv, Belling-

cat, the British-based investigative

group, appealed to people in Ukraine

for the location of any sites they suspect

have been used for mass burials.

Eliot Higgins, the founder of Belling-

cat, tweeted: “If anyone has the exact

co-ordinates of any mass graves I can

check hi-res imagery to see if there’s

any visible signs of ground disturbance

to establish when they were dug.”

Sergey Kaplychny, the head of local

emergency services, said the bodies of

57 people had been unearthed in a mass

grave at Bucha. He showed the site,

behind a church in the town centre,

where a dozen bodies were said to be

visible. Some were in black body bags

and others were in civilian clothes.

Nathan Ruser, a satellite data

researcher at the Australian Strategic

Policy Institute, said extensive digging

was continuing at a cemetery at

Kherson, the city that was overrun by

the Russians soon after the invasion

began. Researchers using images from

Planet Labs, an American earth imag-

ing company, spotted bulldozers at

work at the cemetery in late February.

“April 2nd satellite imagery of

Kherson shows that the graves I’ve

mentioned before are still being dug,”

Ruser tweeted. “Since the beginning of

this invasion, 824 grave plots have been

dug in Kherson cemetery. Given what

we know about Bucha this is very con-

cerning.”

Bellingcat and other groups are seek-

ing evidence of Russian burials as

opposed to mass graves that Ukrainian

officials have made for victims. Anatoly

Fedoruk, the mayor of Bucha, said that

in addition to the many dead lying in

the streets, the local authorities had

dug a communal grave to bury 280

other victims of the Russians.

In Chernihiv, a northern city that has

been under constant Russian bombard-

ment, the local authorities have used

bulldozers to make temporary mass

graves for the civilian dead. The mayor

said the bodies were being placed in

rows to be able to “locate them and bury

them again” when peace returned.

Russian orders for disposing of

bodies in mass graves have surfaced on

social media. Sergej Sumlenny, a Ber-

lin-based Russian journalist who

worked in Ukraine, posted a govern-

ment decree on “state technical stan-

dard for digging and maintaining mass

graves amid wartime” that took effect

on February 1. It included diagrams

showing how corpses should be

covered with chemicals and the site

levelled by a tractor pulling a heavy

roller. “It looks like Russia planned a

fast victory over Ukrainian army, full

occupation of Ukraine and a genocide,

including mass executions of Ukraini-

an civil society leaders, politicians, cul-

tural leaders, clerics, etc,” Sumlenny

tweeted.

commandeered by Russian soldiers,

had been brought back by neighbours

who had remained. It is spray-painted

with a black V, the signature of Russian

forces assaulting Kyiv.

“I came here from Kyiv for a quiet

life,” he said. “It’s a shock, really, all of it.”

His neat garden was strewn with empty

bottles of wine and spirits and every

drawer in the house had been tipped

out. “They drank every bit of alcohol in

every house,” he said. “Maybe 1,

bottles of whisky and vodka in this

neighbourhood. Jewellery, computers,

cash — all gone.”

Polukhin was equally disgusted with

what he found in abandoned Russian

quarters in Bucha. In the pink-tiled

headquarters of a state building supplies

company, the basement was littered

with bottles filled with urine by the sol-

diers as fighting raged. Empty ration

tins and packets lay around the dead

men and inside the building, perhaps

attracting the black puppy — luckier

than many of Bucha’s abandoned pets.

“They slept with all this trash all

around. They are disgusting,” Polukhin

said. “There are so many stray animals

in the city. They have no food and they

started to eat the bodies of dead people.

After that they start to be aggressive

and to attack the soldiers.” Polukhin

and the 60 men under his command

stayed in a damaged and abandoned

apartment block. “Some of us wrote a

note saying we are police officers, we

are temporarily based here and we are

sorry, we tried not to break anything,”

he said. “We will not stay any longer

than we have to.”

As for the Russians’ plans, he said: “I

understand they want to focus else-

where. They were not able to get a big

success in this area. When people ask

what is your forecast for what Putin will

do, I say I don’t know, nobody knows

what one mad person has in his mind.”

Much has been made about the low

morale among the Russians and the

way their own commanders have failed

them, both in battle planning and

because they have rarely tried to recov-

er their troops’ bodies. Their atrocities

in Bucha leave little room for pity, only

the hope that their defeat will be final.

“The civilians told us when they were

retreating from this place the Russian

soldiers were very exhausted,” Polukh-

in said. “They spent a long time in this

place without enough food and they

were exhausted.”

There can be no illusions about Putin’s

wickedness now. Leading article, page 27

War photographer killed by

Russian troops near Kyiv

Richard Assheton

A photojournalist and documentary

film-maker whose pictures of the war

had appeared in The Times has been

shot dead by Russian soldiers.

The body of Maksim Levin, 44,

was found on Friday in Huta-

Mezhyhirska, a village north of

Kyiv where there had been

heavy shelling. He was working

for a Ukrainian website,

LB.ua, and contributed to

Reuters. He had a wife and

four children. The prose-

cutor general’s office

said he was shot twice.

John Pullman, of

Reuters, said: “Maks has

provided compelling photos

and video from Ukraine to

Reuters since 2013. His death is a huge

loss to the world of journalism.”

Reporters Without Borders said he

was the sixth journalist to have been

killed in the war. “He was unarmed and

wearing a press jacket,” it said in a tweet.

“Targeting journalists is a war crime.”

In 2014, during fighting between

Ukrainian forces and separatists

backed by Russia, Levin managed to

avoid capture in a town where

hundreds of Ukrainian sol-

diers were killed.

Yesterday the death

was also reported of a

Lithuanian film director

who was trying to leave

Mariupol. In 2016 Mantas

Kvedaravicius, 45, made a

documentary about the

city, where up to 170,

residents have been

trapped for weeks without

power and with dwindling

supplies.

Maksim Levin is the sixth

journalist to die in the war.

He was wearing a press vest

PHOTOGRAPHS:

SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/

GETTY IMAGES

Why the victims

found yesterday

were tied up

before being

executed is a

puzzle that may

never be solved.

Another civilian

victim in Bucha,

with a dog waiting

loyally close by

News

were shot in the head or chest

Eyes in the sky

search for mass

graves in Ukraine

Charles Bremner Paris

A Maxar satellite photo of Bucha shows

a trench where a mass grave was found