Ukraine's leader: Atrocities found in Izium mass burial site

A view of unidentified graves of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers in a cemetery in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 who had been killed by Russian forces near the beginning of the war. A mass grave of Ukrainian soldiers and unknown buried civilians was found in the forest of recently recaptured city of Izium. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Oleg Kotenko, the Commissioner for Issues of Missing Persons under Special Circumstances looks at the unidentified graves of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 who had been killed by Russian forces near the beginning of the war. A mass grave of Ukrainian soldiers and unknown buried civilians was found in the forest of recently recaptured city of Izium. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A Ukrainian serviceman stands at the checkpoint near the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Destroyed cars are seen in an area next to apartment buildings that have been heavily damaged by Russian attacks on previous months at Saltivka neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A Ukrainian serviceman uses a metal detector to inspect a mass grave in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 which contains Ukrainian soldiers who were killed during the fighting against Russians near the beginning of the war. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A view of unidentified graves of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers in a cemetery in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 who had been killed by Russian forces near the beginning of the war. A mass grave of Ukrainian soldiers and unknown buried civilians was found in the forest of recently recaptured city of Izium. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Oleg Kotenko, the Commissioner for Issues of Missing Persons under Special Circumstances uses his smartphone to film the grave a Ukrainian soldier in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 who had been killed by Russian forces near the beginning of the war. A mass grave of Ukrainian soldiers and unknown buried civilians was found in the forest of recently recaptured city of Izium. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Andrii Iezyk shows the destroyed flat in his house in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. Iezyk's family have since the beginning of the war lived without gas, water and electricity. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

People cross a street in at Saltivka neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

An apartment building heavily damaged by Russian attacks on previous months is seen at Saltivka neighborhood in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Maria, center, hugs her parents Marina and Alexander during their first meeting after seven months since the beginning of the war in the recently retaken town of Izium, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A Ukrainian serviceman sits in a tank, in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Oleg Kotenko, the Commissioner for Issues of Missing Persons under Special Circumstances uses his smartphone to film the unidentified graves of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, who had been killed by Russian forces near the beginning of the war. A mass grave of Ukrainian soldiers and unknown buried civilians was found in the forest of recently recaptured city of Izium. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Iuriy Usatyi, a Ukrainian national guard serviceman walks on the destroyed Russian APC's at the checkpoint near the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Oleg Kotenko, the Commissioner for Issues of Missing Persons under Special Circumstances, left, speaks to his comrade near the unidentified graves of civilians and Ukrainian soldiers in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022 who had been killed by Russian forces near the beginning of the war. A mass grave of Ukrainian soldiers and unknown buried civilians was found in the forest of recently recaptured city of Izium. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

A church can be seen in the distance through an apartment building destroyed by an airstrike in the recently retaken area of Izium, Ukraine, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

IZIUM, Ukraine (AP) — Investigators searching through what appears to be one of the largest mass burial sites discovered in Ukraine have found evidence of atrocities, including torture, on land recently recaptured from Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said Friday.

In a video he apparently rushed out to underscore the gravity of the discoveries just hours after exhumations began, Zelenskyy said hundreds of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, had been found “tortured, shot, killed by shelling” near Izium's Pishchanske cemetery. He cited evidence of atrocities, such as a body with a rope around its neck and broken arms.

In the video, Zelenskyy said more than 400 graves have been found at the site but that the number of victims isn’t yet known. Zelenskyy, who visited the Izium area on Wednesday, said the discoveries showed again the need for world leaders to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would press on with the war despite the success of the recent Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Speaking to reporters Friday after attending a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Putin said the “liberation” of the entire territory of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas remains Russia’s main goal.

He added that “we aren’t in a rush” to achieve the stated goals, noting that Russia has only engaged volunteer soldiers in the operation.

Digging in the rain, workers hauled body after body out of the sandy soil in a pine forest near Izium. Protected by full body suits and rubber gloves, they gently felt through the decomposing remains of the victims' clothing, seemingly looking for things that might identify them.

Ukrainian forces gained access to the site after recapturing the northeastern city and much of the wider Kharkiv region in a counteroffensive that suddenly shifted the momentum in the nearly seven-month war. Ukrainian officials also found evidence of torture elsewhere in the region. The U.N. human rights office said it would investigate.

Associated Press journalists who visited the Izium site saw graves amid the pine trees, marked with simple wooden crosses. Most were numbered into the 400s.

The majority of the people buried were believed to be civilians, but a marker on one mass grave said it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the war continued to claim lives and wreak destruction.

— Ukraine’s presidential office said Russian shelling killed five civilians and wounded 18 others in a 24-hour span. Missile strikes were also reported, with Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih among the targets for a third consecutive day Friday. Air raid sirens also howled in the capital, Kyiv.

— More killings targeting pro-Russian separatist officials were reported in areas under their control. Separatist authorities said a blast killed the prosecutor-general of the self-proclaimed republic in the Luhansk region. Moscow-backed authorities said two Russian-installed officials were also killed in Berdyansk, a city in the Zaporizhzhia region occupied earlier in the war. And local authorities reported at least one person killed and 10 wounded in a Ukrainian missile strike on an administrative building in Russian-occupied Kherson.

— To bolster the Ukrainian offensive, the Biden administration announced another $600 million package of military aid.

Izium resident Sergei Gorodko said that among the hundreds buried in individual graves were dozens of adults and children killed in a Russian airstrike on an apartment building.

He said he pulled some of them out of the rubble “with my own hands.”

Before exhumation, investigators with metal detectors scanned the site for any hidden explosives. Soldiers strung red and white plastic tape between the trees to mark off parts of the site. A few graves had wreaths of flowers hanging from the crosses, and some bore people’s names.

Izium was a key supply hub for Russian forces until they withdrew in recent days. Izium city councilor Maksym Strelnikov told reporters that hundreds of people had died during the fighting and after Russia seized the town in March. Many couldn’t get a proper burial, he said.

His claims could not be immediately verified, but similar scenes have played out in other cities captured by Russian forces, including Mariupol.

Strelnikov said an untold number of people also died from lack of proper health care since the “medical infrastructure of the city was destroyed.” Most of the city’s pre-war population of 47,000 fled to Ukrainian-held territories. Strelnikov said 10,000 residents remain in the ruined city — bracing for more hardship with winter coming and most infrastructure destroyed.

Ukraine’s national police chief, Ihor Klymenko, said “torture chambers” have also been found in the Kharkiv region's recaptured towns and villages. The claim could not be independently verified.

Seven Sri Lankan students who fell into Russian hands in Kupiansk, also in the Kharkiv region, have also said that they were held and mistreated, he said.

“They are scared, they were abused,” he said. They include “a woman who can barely speak” and two with torn toe nails.

Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Enin said bodies exhumed in the region also showed “traces of a violent death, but also of torture — cut off ears, etc. This is just the beginning.”

“All these traces of war crimes are now carefully documented by us. And we know from the experience of Bucha that the worst crimes can only be exposed over time,” Enin said in an interview with Ukraine’s Radio NV.

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This story has been updated to correct that seven, not six, Sri Lankan students said they fell into Russian hands.

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Associated Press journalists Hanna Arhirova and Jon Gambrell in Kyiv and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed reporting.

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Follow AP war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine