Ukrainian officials exhumed two bodies at a village in the northeast recently recaptured from the Russians, part of an investigation into a possible war crime, AFP journalists witnessed.
Police and prosecutors from Kharkiv region carried out the exhumation in the village of Grakove in the presence of around 20 journalists.
Village resident Sergiy Lutsay told journalists that Russian soldiers had forced him to bury the bodies at gunpoint soon after the Russian invasion began on February 24.
"They came to my house, I was with my father, aged 70," he said. "I was scared that they would threaten him."
"They told me to come to dig a hole."
He would not confirm a police statement that said that at least one of the two men killed had his ears cut off.
He said he did not know either of the victims, but both of them looked to be in their 30s.
The prosecutors' office will arrange for autopsies to determine how the two men died, as well as taking the villager's testimony, a member of the investigating team, who wanted to remain anonymous, told AFP.
The village was the scene of fierce fighting in the early weeks of the invasion. Many buildings, including houses, were damaged and the bell of the church was partially destroyed.
Police warned journalists not to stray from the road or enter any abandoned houses because the village had not yet been completely demined.
Ukrainians have announced significant territorial gains from the Russian forces during a recent offensive in the eastern Kharkiv region.
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of a string of war crimes in the suburb of Kyiv that their forces recaptured in March.
Ukraine reoccupied the territory when Moscow pulled back its forces after the failed bid to capture the capital at the start of the invasion.
