At least 11 civilians were found dead on a road, shot dead after Russian troops withdrew from much of the Kharkiv region, a team from Agence France Presse (AFP) found this afternoon. . According to the Ukrainian soldiers who discovered the cars of the civilians and some charred bodies, the Russians attacked a convoy of civilians. We are unable to independently confirm this claim.
A pro-Russian separatist official yesterday accused the Ukrainian army from Moscow of having fired on a convoy of civilians in the region, killing 30 people, without giving further details.
The convoy of about ten people that AFP saw today was on a road from the village of Kyrylivka, 70 km east of Kharkiv, when it was targeted. On the spot, the bodies of the killed civilians are still there, inside or next to six vehicles. A minibus is completely burned, four bodies, including that of what looks like a child, lying on the seats. Not far away, a cream-colored Lada has its trunk open, a man in a hat and blue jeans lying beside it, next to an abandoned business bag. In the back seat of a blue car, an old lady is curled up in her coat, as if sound asleep.
“The cars were moving together, like a convoy of civilians. You can see that there is almost no space between the cars”said “Filya”, a Ukrainian soldier who accompanied AFP to the site. “We shot them, that’s for sure. Look at the holes left by the bullets »he adds. “They set fire to a car and it is impossible to distinguish the people inside without an expert”he believes.