The head of the Sumy military administration, Dimitro Zhivitsky, announced on his official Facebook profile that the region is “free” of Russian forces, although he has urged the population to stay in their homes due to the large number of mined and unexplored areas.
“The territory of the region is free of orcs — in reference to Russian troops — so if you hear explosions (and there have been many in recent days), these are rescuers and explosives technicians working,” he said.
Earlier this week, the Russian Army had begun its withdrawal from the region, as announced by Zhivitsky himself, who specified that a large march of Russian troops was advancing from Bilopillya to Konotop, in the communities of Bilopillya, Putivl, Buryn, Novo-Slobidskaya, Popivska and around Konotop.
According to Ukrainian broadcaster Suspilne, on Monday there were still small groups of Russian troops left in the region. “The territory is being cleaned, we have to be very careful, because the Russian soldiers are frightened. There may be dozens or hundreds of them,” he said.
At least 26 bodies were recovered from the rubble of two houses in the Ukrainian city of Borodyanka, Ukrainian Attorney General Irina Venediktova reported on her official Facebook profile.
“Only from under the rubble of two bombed apartment buildings, 26 bodies were recovered. The enemy insidiously inflicted air strikes on housing infrastructure at night, when there were a maximum number of people at home,” he said, after visiting the city.
In this regard, he assured that “the objective was exclusively the civilian population”. “There is not a single military installation here,” he said, adding that “evidence of Russian war crimes” is “at all times” in the city due to the remains of cluster bombs, missiles and rocket launchers.
In addition, the Ukrainian Attorney General said that in Motyzhyn Russian forces killed a woman “just because she was wearing black.” “The victim's father remained blindfolded in the barn for seven days,” he added.
In this regard, Venediktova pointed out that both prosecutors, police officers, officers of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and experts from five provinces “are gathering evidence of Russia's war crimes for national and international courts.”
For his part, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, assured in his speech to the United Nations Security Council that “there are many other places similar (to Bucha) from which the world has yet to discover the complete truth”, including Kharkiv, Chernigov, Okhtirka and Borodyanka.
(With information from Europa Press)
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