Satellite image provider Maxar Technologies released the photos, which it said showed more than 200 mass graves in a town where Ukrainian officials say the Russians have been burying Mariupol residents killed in the fighting.
KYIV, Ukraine — Mounds of dirt seen in satellite imagery that Ukrainian officials say indicate new mass graves highlighted the savagery of a war that showed no signs of abating Friday, as Russia pounded targets in eastern Ukraine in aCities in the Donbas came under Russian fire overnight, and the attacks interfered with attempts to evacuate civilians in one area, according to a regional official.
More intensive shelling was also heard overnight in Kharkiv, a northeastern city that lies outside of the Donbas but has seen strikes repeatedly recently. “Russian forces continued offensive operations in eastern Ukraine but made only marginal gains,” according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, which has chronicled the campaign on a daily basis.Despite that, a Russian official repeated Friday that its forces aim to take full control of eastern and southern Ukraine, noting the latter would provide land corridor to Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014.
In the images, long rows of dirt mounds stretch away from an existing cemetery in Manhush, outside Mariupol. Local officials accused Russia of burying up to 9,000 Ukrainian civilians in mass graves in an effort to conceal the slaughter taking place in the port city, which has been under siege since the early days of the war.