New mass graves found on updated Google Maps satellite images of Mariupol

Google Maps has updated its satellite images of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol and the Kyiv region to ones dated April 2022, Ukrainian media outlet Babel and Mariupol’s Adviser to Mayor Petro Andriyshchenko report. 

“We have thoroughly studied the map of all the cemeteries and located new sectors of mass burials at the Novotroitske cemetery. The sectors seem to be bigger in size than the mass graves in the villages Vynohradne and Manhush,” Andriyshchenko writes.

According to him, as of now there is no information on who and when could be buried in them. Andriyshchenko mentions that the Novotroitske cemetery was closed until approximately the middle of July 2022 and was controlled by Russian occupation “government” during that time. 

Twitter users have started sharing new images of Mariupol on their accounts. For example, Dmytro Orest Kozatskyi, former press secretary of the Azov regiment recently liberated from Russian captivity, shared a Google Maps photo featuring his house that had been still on fire at the time of the photo being taken. 

The images also show Mariupol’s Drama Theatre that was destroyed by the Russian army on 16 March 2022. According to the investigation conducted by Associated Press, about 600 people were killed in the strike.