April 7, 2022, 9:02 p.m. • 8 minutes reading Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Email this article In one of the most gruesome allegations since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has been accused by Ukrainian officials of using “mobile crematoria” to cremate dead civilians in a deliberate attempt to cover up alleged war crimes in the city. of Mariupol. Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko made the accusation this week, saying he had heard testimonies from Russian soldiers driving around Mariupol in crematoria in trucks and collecting civilian bodies, while also banning the International Committee of the Red Cross from entering the city. aid. . “People have not seen the magnitude of the tragedy in Mariupol since the existence of the Nazi concentration camps,” Boychenko said on Tuesday. “The Russians have turned our entire city into a death camp. Unfortunately, the creepy analogy is increasingly being confirmed.” A local resident walks with a suitcase in front of destroyed apartment buildings in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 30, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In a statement posted on its Facebook account, the Mariupol City Council said that “witnesses have seen evidence that Russia is operating mobile crematoria in Mariupol, burning the bodies of dead civilians and concealing evidence of war crimes.” The statement added that “this is why Russia is in no hurry” to allow the ICC and other human rights watchdogs to enter Mariupol to rescue civilians trapped there. Boichenko and the city council said portable human ovens had appeared in Mariupol following reports of alleged atrocities at the hands of Russian troops in Bucha, a suburb of the capital Kiev. Ukrainian officials say at least 410 civilians have been killed in Bucha, including many who were found with their hands tied behind their backs and shot in the head. Boichenko said his once-prosperous port city of 400,000 had been completely decimated by bombings and estimated that about 5,000 people had been killed. U.S. defense officials have told ABC News that they have not confirmed allegations that Russia is using mobile incinerators to cover up war crimes. D-Massachusetts spokesman Seth Moulton told ABC News on Thursday he was not surprised by the reports. Moulton, a former Marine and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said that during a 2015 fact-finding mission to Ukraine with “other credible sources”, “reliable sources” informed him that the Russian military was using mobile coffins in its own soldiers in Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukraine. He said sources told him that Russia was using the devices to cover the number of its soldiers killed in Crimea. A man holds a cat as displaced people wait before boarding a bus to leave Mariupol, Ukraine, April 5, 2022. “We heard this from various sources there, enough that I was sure of the accuracy of the information,” Moulton said. “None of this has changed. That is exactly what was happening then and now I hear reports, not surprisingly, that it is happening again.” Moulton said he had no reason to reject reports from Ukrainian officials that Russia was using incinerators to cover up new war crimes. “The bottom line is that this is not something new for the Russian military and Vladimir Putin,” Moulton said. This satellite image shows damage to a warehouse of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 28, 2022. In an interview with Turkish media this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that Russian soldiers had “cleaned up” before allowing humanitarian aid workers to enter the heavily bombed Mariupol. Pressure from the international community on war crimes against Putin and other Russian officials is growing. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has launched an investigation into the atrocities allegedly committed against Ukrainian civilians by Russian troops since the invasion began on February 24. A report released by Amnesty International on Thursday claims that Russian forces have committed many war crimes throughout Ukraine. The group said its crisis investigators interviewed more than 20 people from villages and towns near Kyiv, and many claimed to have witnessed civilian executions. The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday passed a resolution suspending Russia’s participation in the UN Human Rights Council in response to the alleged killing of civilians by Russian forces in Ukraine. “I’m not sure who needs more evidence that Russia is committing war crimes,” Moulton told ABC News. “They are trying to cover their tracks.” Russia has denied that it committed atrocities and targeted civilians.
