Columns of Russian tanks with flags flying from their turrets patrolled the ruins of Mariupol yesterday amid reports that 9,000 Ukrainians may have been murdered and buried in mass graves on the outskirts of the city.
The menacing T-72s bore the familiar white, blue and red Russian flag and the less well-known black, blue and red flag of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a region occupi
Some 100,000 civilians remain trapped in Mariupol after talks to open humanitarian corridors fell through – as it was reported that Russian forces bombed an escape route.
Yesterday, satellite images emerged of what appear to be mass graves near the city. Mariupol council claimed the graves could hold as many as 9,000 bodies.
If confirmed, the graves would be much bigger than those found in the town of Bucha. Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko accused the Russians of ‘hiding their military crimes’ by burying the people they murdered.
He said: ‘The greatest war crime of the 21st century has been committed in Mariupol. This is the new Babi Yar [a massacre of Ukrainian Jews by the Nazis in 1941].
‘Then, Hitler killed Jews, Roma and Slavs
ed by pro-Russian separatists.
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