Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on Dec. 21 that the bodies of seven civilians, including a teenage girl, allegedly killed by Russian forces had been found in a mass burial site in the recently liberated village of Pravdyne in the southern Kherson Oblast.
Reznikov accused the Russian troops of disregarding the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits violence against civilians.
“They just kill,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.
The minister added that more than 500 bodies of civilians, including children, were discovered in the liberated parts of Kharkiv Oblast alone. Search operations are still ongoing, according to the minister.
Bodies of killed civilians and torture chambers have been discovered in multiple settlements in areas liberated by Ukrainian forces. In late October, Ukraine's Reintegration Ministry reported that around 1,000 bodies — both military personnel and civilians, including children — had been exhumed in recently liberated settlements.
