The village of Grakove in eastern Ukraine bears the scars of Kiev\u2019s bitter counter-offensive
\nGRAKOVE
\nElectric pylons toppled, cables strewn across the ground; sgutted houses and roads dotted with craters \u2014 the village of Grakove in eastern Ukraine bears the scars of Ukraine\u2019s bitter counter-offensive.
\n\u201cIt was frightening,\u201d said 61-year-old Anatoli Vasiliev, recalling this week\u2019s battle when Ukrainian troops recaptured Grakove from the Russians.
\n\u201cThere were bombings and explosions everywhere.\u201d
\nVasiliev stood in front of the local church, whose bell had been damaged by a projectile.
\nSome of the Russian soldiers \u201ctook phones, but I managed to keep mine by hiding it so I could communicate with my family,\u201d he said.
\nUkrainians have announced significant territorial gains in the eastern Kharkiv region.
\nPresident Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday 30 towns and cities had been recaptured there.
\nAmong the debris scattered through Grakove \u2014 and in front of houses still inhabited \u2014 dogs and cats search for scraps of food.
\nOnly about 30 of the village\u2019s 800 pre-war inhabitants remain.
\nThe road leading to Grakove from Ukraine\u2019s second city Kharkiv, a regional hub, is lined with the skeletons of cars destroyed in explosions or crushed by tanks.
\nDisarmed mines are scattered around the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. A tow truck carries off a captured Russian military vehicle.
\nTraveling in the opposition direction are two armored cars taking troops to the front. Artillery fire echoes in the distance.
\nIn the village, police and a team from the Kharkiv region\u2019s prosecutors office exhume the bodies of two men aged in their thirties.
\nThe officials here suspect a war crime: the remains show signs of torture and execution.
\nVillage resident Sergiy Lutsay said Russian soldiers had forced him to bury the bodies at gunpoint.
\n\u201cThey came to my house. I was with my 70-year-old father,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cI was scared they would threaten him. They told me to come to dig a hole.\u201d
\nThis, he said, was soon after the Russian invasion began on February 24.
\nAn official from the prosecutors\u2019 office said the bodies would be sent for an medical examination to determine the cause of death.
\nSergiy Bolvinov, deputy chief of police for the Kharkiv region, said Lutsay had told them that the victims \u201chad wounds on the back of the head and their ears had been cut off.\u201d
\nLutsay did not confirm the details to journalists.
\nUkraine has accused Russian forces of a string of war crimes in towns and villages outside Kyiv that its forces recaptured in March.
\nUkraine reoccupied the territory when Moscow pulled back its forces after a failed bid to capture the capital at the start of the invasion.
\n\u201cThis is not the only evidence of atrocities committed by the Russians,\u201d said Bolvinov.
\n\u201cThere are two other sites like this one in the village. We will be investigating them.\u201d
\nPolice warned journalists warned from straying off roads or investigating abandoned buildings because demining work was still under way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The village of Grakove in eastern Ukraine bears the scars of Kiev\u2019s bitter counter-offensive GRAKOVE Electric pylons toppled, cables strewn across the ground; sgutted houses and roads dotted with craters \u2014 the village of Grakove in eastern Ukraine bears the scars of Ukraine\u2019s bitter counter-offensive. \u201cIt was frightening,\u201d said 61-year-old Anatoli Vasiliev, recalling this week\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-282705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n