Ukrainian police say the bodies of more than 500 civilians were found in Kharkiv

The destruction of a residential building in Zaporizhia from space 0:36 (CNN) — The bodies of more than 500 civilians have been found in northeastern Ukraine, territory recently recaptured from Russian forces, Ukrainian police say. And as Ukrainian forces liberate more land in the northeast, new cemeteries are being discovered in Donetsk. Many appear to contain civilians who lost their lives during several months of shelling and missile launches. “We found the bodies of 534 civilians from the unoccupied territories” in the Kharkiv region alone, said Serhii Bolnivov, head of the regional police investigation department. The bodies included 226 women and 19 children, Bolvinov said. An interior view shows the basement of a building that Ukrainian authorities say was a makeshift Russian prison and torture chamber in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on September 18, 2022. Viktoriia Yakymenko/Reuters A newspaper view and a gas mask hanging on a wall in a room in a police station that a Ukrainian military officer says was used as a torture chamber by Russian soldiers in the city of Izium in Kharkiv region, Ukraine, on September 18. 2022. Umit Bektas/Reuters Most of those recovered, 447, were found in what he described as a “mass burial site” in the town of Izium, which Ukrainian forces liberated from Russian occupation in early September. Russian troops had been using Izium as a launching pad for strikes south into the Donetsk region. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh visited the site in mid-September. Bolvinov also stated that more than twenty alleged Russian “torture chambers” have been found in the region. “In almost all big cities and towns, where the military units of the Russian army were located, they established such places of detention of civilians and prisoners of war and tortured them,” Bolvinov said, adding that one was in the city of Pisky-Radkivski. . “This is the 22nd torture chamber that we have found and inspected in the unoccupied territory of the Kharkiv region,” Bolvinov said. He said the most common torture techniques were electric shocks and heavy beatings with sticks and other objects, he said, adding that there were also cases of nail pulling and the use of gas masks to restrict breathing. Bolvinov said that there were also ongoing criminal proceedings over allegations of rape. “We understand that it is very difficult for victims to testify about these types of events. However, there are processes that we have registered, there are resources from women who were raped. We have information about the alleged acts of rape in torture chambers,” added Bolvinov. The Ukrainian investigations in Kharkiv come after serious human rights abuses by Russian forces were uncovered north of Kyiv in March. Russia was accused of a litany of war crimes during its failed campaign to capture Kyiv in the first months of the war. After withdrawing from Bucha, a suburb of the Ukrainian capital, reports emerged of Russian forces carrying out summary executions and indiscriminate shelling. Bodies were found shot, bound and left to rot, some showing signs of torture. In nearby Borodianka, dead civilians were found scattered in the streets. Houses were reportedly looted. Moscow has consistently denied that its soldiers are responsible for war crimes. In Bucha, the Kremlin claimed, without evidence, that the atrocities there were staged. However, witnesses who spoke to CNN said the killing in the city began after their occupation. A report published in July by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe found that patterns of violent acts by Russian forces in Ukraine meet the qualification of crimes against humanity.