Four hundred tombs discovered in Ukrainian city after Russian army flees

A total of 440 unmarked graves have been discovered in the Ukrainian city of Izium, in the Kharkov region, occupied by the Russian army until it was retaken by Kyiv just a few days ago.

"Mass graves are being discovered in Izium after it was liberated from the Russians. There are up to 440 unidentified graves," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported Friday on Twitter.

According to the Ukrainian government "the necessary procedural actions have already begun," and by Saturday "there should be more information [that is] clear [and] verified" about the findings.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Thursday that a mass grave with an unspecified number of corpses was found in a forest near Izium, in the east of the country, a locality recently liberated from the Russians.

"A mass burial of people has been found in Izium," Zelenski said in his regular evening address. "We want the world to know what is really happening and what the Russian occupation has led to. Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Raisin ..." he added.

The Ukrainian president wrote in a Telegram statement that "Russia leaves nothing but death and suffering. Murderers. Torturers. Deprived of all that is human" and warned of a "terribly just punishment."

The U.N. human rights mission deployed in Ukraine plans to visit the town of Izyum to verify information related to the discovery of more than 400 graves.

"Our monitoring mission in Ukraine is following these allegations and is going to organize a visit to Izyum to determine the circumstances of the death of these individuals," U.N. Human Rights Office spokeswoman Liz Throssell said in Geneva.

The town of Izyum, occupied by Russian troops for weeks, was recaptured by the Ukrainian army in the counteroffensive launched last week by the Kiev government in the south and east of the country.

The rapid fall of the city was Moscow's worst defeat since its troops were forced to withdraw from the capital in March. It could prove to be a decisive turning point in the six-month war, as thousands of Russian soldiers abandoned their ammunition and equipment stocks in their flight.

Russian forces were using Izyum as a logistical base for one of their main campaigns: a months-long assault from the north on the adjacent Donbas region, consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk.