Home › Security › What did Izium's mass graves reveal by 17 September 2022?
What did Izium's mass graves reveal by 17 September 2022?
Summary
A look back at the security picture on 17 September 2022, as reports of a mass burial site near recaptured Izium emerged alongside shelling claims in Belgorod Oblast.
What was known on 17 September 2022 about the war's latest grim discoveries? Two days earlier, on 15 September, Ukrainian police said a mass grave holding more than 440 bodies had been found in Izium, a city recently recaptured during Ukraine's Kharkiv counteroffensive.
The site was in woods near the city. The Ukrainian government believes that over 1,000 civilian residents were killed during the battle for Izium and the subsequent Russian occupation. The graves were later described as containing people killed by Russian forces.
Claims from across the border
On 16 September, the governor of Russia's Belgorod Oblast, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said Ukrainian shelling of Valuyki had killed one civilian and injured two others. The report was one of a series of accounts of attacks in western Russia during the period.
Taken together, the reports from 15 and 16 September showed a front line in motion. Ukrainian forces were recovering territory in the Kharkiv region, and with it came evidence of what had happened to civilians under occupation. At the same time, officials on the Russian side were reporting casualties from shelling inside Russia.
The Izium discovery was filed among the war crimes reported in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it was among the key developments of the Kharkiv counteroffensive.
