GRAKOVE, Ukraine: Electric pylons toppled, cables strewn across the ground; gutted houses and roads dotted with craters 鈥� the village of Grakove in eastern Ukraine bears the scars of Ukraine鈥檚 bitter counter-offensive.
鈥淚t was frightening,鈥� said 61-year-old Anatoli Vasiliev, recalling this week鈥檚 battle when Ukrainian troops recaptured Grakove from the Russians.
鈥淭here were bombings and explosions everywhere.鈥�
Vasiliev stood in front of the local church, whose bell had been damaged by a projectile.
Some of the Russian soldiers 鈥渢ook phones, but I managed to keep mine by hiding it so I could communicate with my family,鈥� he said.
Ukrainians have announced significant territorial gains in the eastern Kharkiv region.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday 30 towns and cities had been recaptured there.
Among the debris scattered through Grakove 鈥� and in front of houses still inhabited 鈥� dogs and cats search for scraps of food.
Only about 30 of the village鈥檚 800 pre-war inhabitants remain.
The road leading to Grakove from Ukraine鈥檚 second city Kharkiv, a regional hub, is lined with the skeletons of cars destroyed in explosions or crushed by tanks.
Disarmed mines are scattered around the side of the road, waiting to be picked up. A tow truck carries off a captured Russian military vehicle.
Traveling in the opposition direction are two armored cars taking troops to the front. Artillery fire echoes in the distance.
In the village, police and a team from the Kharkiv region鈥檚 prosecutors office exhume the bodies of two men aged in their thirties.
The officials here suspect a war crime: the remains show signs of torture and execution.
Village resident Sergiy Lutsay said Russian soldiers had forced him to bury the bodies at gunpoint.
鈥淭hey came to my house. I was with my 70-year-old father,鈥� he said.
鈥淚 was scared they would threaten him. They told me to come to dig a hole.鈥�
This, he said, was soon after the Russian invasion began on February 24.
An official from the prosecutors鈥� office said the bodies would be sent for an medical examination to determine the cause of death.
Sergiy Bolvinov, deputy chief of police for the Kharkiv region, said Lutsay had told them that the victims 鈥渉ad wounds on the back of the head and their ears had been cut off.鈥�
Lutsay did not confirm the details to journalists.
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of a string of war crimes in towns and villages outside Kyiv that its forces recaptured in March.
Ukraine reoccupied the territory when Moscow pulled back its forces after a failed bid to capture the capital at the start of the invasion.
鈥淭his is not the only evidence of atrocities committed by the Russians,鈥� said Bolvinov.
鈥淭here are two other sites like this one in the village. We will be investigating them.鈥�
Police warned journalists warned from straying off roads or investigating abandoned buildings because demining work was still under way.