Sylvie Claire / April 5, 2022
Police showed journalists four bodies, including that of the mayor, half-buried in a pit dug in a pine forest bordering the village mayor's house, and the body of another man lying at the bottom of a small well in the garden.
According to the police, the five people had their hands tied behind their backs.
The mayor, Olga Sukhenko, aged 50, her husband and their son, had been kidnapped by Russian forces on March 24, according to the same source.
Residents of the village told AFP that the mayor and her husband had refused to cooperate with Russian forces.
On March 11, the mayor of Melitopol, in southern Ukraine, was kidnapped by Russian soldiers and released a few days later.
Russian soldiers have been loosening their grip on the Kiev region and the north for several days to concentrate their military efforts on the east of the country.
In Boutcha, a town about 30 km northeast of Motyzhyn, dozens of bodies wearing civilian clothes were discovered this weekend in the streets or in mass graves, after the Russian withdrawal.