Russian soldiers using mobile crematoria 'to hide evidence of crimes' claims Ukraine

In an apparent bid to hide the war casualties, Russia has been operating mobile crematoria in Mariupol, Ukraine’s Defence Ministry has claimed on Twitter.

“In order to hide the evidence of their crimes,  [Russian] occupiers used mobile crematoria in Mariupol,” it stated, adding that bodies of hundreds of tortured and murdered citizens were burnt by Russian troops.

"The world has not seen a tragedy on the scale of Mariupol since the Nazi camps," the Defense Ministry of Ukraine quoted the mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol Vadym Boichenko as saying. 

Russian soldiers attacking 'from the sea,' via warships

Russian shelling and targeting of the civilian areas has destroyed 90% of the infrastructure and 40% is unrecoverable, Boichenko said. As many as 130,000 civilians remained trapped in the city as of Wednesday, as the city authorities launched evacuation via a humanitarian corridor as it was pounded by Russian bombardments.

“The Russian army is brutally destroying Mariupol,” Boichenko said. “The bombings are incessant with the notable use of multiple rocket launchers,” he added.

Ukrainian soldiers walk next to heavily damaged residential buildings in Irpin. Credit: AP

Cemetery workers receive three corpses of civilians killed in Bucha, before the corpses are transported to the morgue, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: Associated Press/ Rodrigo Abd

The assault was being carried out by Russian troops mainly from the sea using warships, the mayor of Mariupol elaborated on his Telegram channel. The Russian forces are using the crematorium in the besieged port city to "cover their tracks".

The mayor said that an eyewitness has elaborated that Russia’s special brigades are collecting and burning "the bodies of Mariupol residents murdered and killed as a result of the Russian invasion".

This act may have been ordered by Russia's top military commanders to their soldiers to ensure the destruction of evidence, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have claimed. An estimated 5,000 deaths have occurred from Russian shellings and "tens of thousands of civilians” have been caught in the attacks.

A Ukrainian serviceman stands amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit: AP/Felipe Dana

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a statement to Turkish agencies also claimed that Russian forces were busy  "cleaning up" the civilian death toll ahead of the aid workers' arrival into the besieged and heavily attacked city.

If Russian soldiers capture the port city, they would be able to establish a connecting corridor to the Crimean Peninsula that they annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Reports also emerged that troops from the pro-Russian Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) militia have been controlling the area as ordered by self-proclaimed mayor-collaborator Kostiantyn Ivashchenko.