Coveney: Russia must be held to account over Ukraine mass graves

Minister Coveney's visit to Ukraine

Ireland's foreign affairs minister has condemned the revelations of a  mass grave in the Ukrainian city of Izium.

Simon Coveney said the horrifying discoveries were a reminder to the international community about the need to ensure that international law applied to Russia and that it was held to account.

Ukrainian authorities found a mass burial site near the recaptured north-eastern city previously occupied by Russian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday night.

“What President Zelensky said last night, and I think we will see a lot more evidence today, is a reminder of why Ireland and so many other countries have taken such an interest and involvement in Russian aggression in Ukraine,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

Amid the trees at the site were hundreds of graves with simple wooden crosses, most of them marked only with numbers. A larger grave bore a marker saying it contained the bodies of 17 Ukrainian soldiers.

“A mass grave of people was found in Izium in the Kharkiv region. The necessary procedures have already begun there. More information – clear, verifiable information – should be available tomorrow,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly televised address.

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)

Oleg Kotenko, an official with the Ukrainian ministry tasked with reintegrating occupied territories, said videos that Russian soldiers posted on social media indicated there were likely more than 17 bodies in the mass grave.

“We haven’t counted them yet, but I think there are more than 25 or even 30,” he said.

Izium resident Sergei Gorodko said that among the hundreds buried in individual graves were dozens of adults and children killed in a Russian air strike on an apartment building. He said he pulled some of them out of the rubble “with my own hands”.

Mr Coveney visited the Ukrainian city of Bucha earlier this year following the discovery of mass graves there.

Speaking on air, Mr Coveney said: “I saw the mass graves myself. We are seeing, unfortunately, that Bucha was not an isolated incident.

“Russia needed to be held to account”, he said.

In his address to the nation, Mr Zelensky invoked the names of other Ukrainian cities where authorities said retreating Russian troops left behind mass civilian graves and evidence of possible war crimes.

“Bucha, Mariupol, now, unfortunately, Izium. … Russia leaves death everywhere. And it must be held accountable for it. The world must bring Russia to real responsibility for this war,” he said.