Placeholder when loading item promotions
New satellite images show a mass grave in the Russian-held village of Manhush, about 12 miles west of Mariupol, a discovery Ukrainian officials say is evidence of war crimes against civilians in the strategic port city.
The images, provided to the Washington Post by Maxar Technologies on Thursday, show multiple rows of graves in four different sections, each measuring nearly 280 feet. The company’s review of the images shows that the new graves appeared between March 23 and 26 and that there are now more than 200 grave sites adjacent to an existing cemetery.
The Mariupol City Council said in a statement on Telegram that officials believe up to 9,000 civilians could be buried in the mass grave where Russian forces are “digging new trenches every day in April and filling them with bodies.” The council added that it has information that suggests the bodies were “buried in layers”. There was no immediate independent verification of these claims.
Mariupol, a strategic port city, is a key hub for Russian troops hoping to secure a land route to Russia’s annexed Crimea. Ukrainian officials say at least 20,000 people have been killed in Mariupol since the invasion began – and that the new mass grave appears to be significantly larger than those in Bucha, the Kyiv suburb, where civilians were found scattered on the streets after Russian troops withdrew.
The discovery prompted immediate condemnation from Ukrainian officials and underscored once again the war’s mounting, often hidden, casualties. Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko dubbed the site the “new Babyn Yar,” referring to one of Europe’s largest mass graves on the outskirts of Kyiv, where 33,000 Jews were killed by Nazis in 1941 during World War II.
“The greatest war crime of the 21st century was committed in Mariupol. This is the new Babyn Yar. Then Hitler killed Jews, Roma and Slavs. Now Putin is destroying Ukrainians,” Boichenko said in the city council statement. “We must do everything to stop the genocide.”
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to Boichenko, wrote on his Facebook page that the photos reflect “the full extent of the Mariupol tragedy, the inhumanity of the Russians” and “constitute direct evidence of war crimes and attempts to cover them up.” ”
There were no immediate comments from Russian officials in response to the discovery.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in the devastated city – although his advisers acknowledged that thousands of Ukrainian fighters were holed up alongside hundreds of civilians in a steel mill. Mariupol’s last defenders have repeatedly said in recent days that they will not surrender their arms and have vowed to fight to the end – but Ukrainian officials have conceded they control only a small part of the city.
Mayor Boichenko told the Guardian on Thursday that Russian trucks had been collecting bodies from the port city’s streets and transporting them to Manhush to hide evidence of what he called “barbaric war crimes.”
“The intruders hide evidence of their crimes,” he said. “The cemetery is near a gas station on the left side of a county road. The Russians have dug huge trenches, 30 meters wide. They throw people in.”
The discovery of the Manhush mass grave comes as investigators across Ukraine begin the painstaking work of identifying those killed and documenting potential war crimes. Mass graves were found in numerous cities after Russian troops withdrew from Kiev cities; Post reporters have documented cases of indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, torture and summary executions in Bordyanka, Vorzel, Moshchun and Makariv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that the destruction in Mariupol is likely to escalate as intense shelling buildings have leveled buildings and left trapped civilians without basic needs such as food and water. Efforts to evacuate the roughly 120,000 people still living there have repeatedly failed – although Ukrainian officials said on Thursday several dozen had managed to flee in a convoy of buses and private vehicles.
In a speech on Thursday, Zelenskyy accused the Russians of working to cover up atrocities while consolidating their grip on the city. He claimed Russian troops used a mobile crematorium to destroy bodies, making it impossible to know how many died. He offered no further details and the claim could not be independently verified.
By mid-March, authorities had buried about 5,000 people in the stricken city of Mariupol, according to the city council.
“The occupiers drew their conclusions from how the world reacted to the massacre in Bucha,” said Zelenskyy. “And now the Russians are trying to cover the tracks of war crimes.”
Andryushchenko, the Mariupol mayor’s adviser, accused Russian troops of throwing bodies in plastic bags down an embankment visible in the new satellite images. He said the total length of the added plot was about 1,000 feet — several times longer than a 45-foot Bucha mass grave where 70 people were found.
“Rage,” he wrote on Telegram. “Nothing but anger.”