Ukraine regains territory, and crime scene investigators move in

And just as forensic scientists would visit the site of a killing in prewar times to collect evidence, they needed to do the same here in their quest to gather evidence of potential Russian war crimes — a process taking place across the country that led to the announcement of a first prosecution on Wednesday, a 21-year-old Russian soldier who is in custody.The catch: The area was still covered in booby traps and tripwires rigged to land mines, and Russia’s military positions were close enough that a reconnaissance drone could fly by at any moment and make everyone working on the ground a target for artillery bombardment.It all underscored a new reality for Kharkiv and other parts of eastern Ukraine, where the war with Russia is now concentrated. But that would be a different story — it would mean attacking the Russian territory.”Latest updates from the Ukraine warThe Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, assessed that the Ukrainian counteroffensive north of Kharkiv has possibly closed to within seven miles of the Russian border and “will likely continue to divert Russian troops and resources from deployment to other axes of advance where fighting has been similarly stalled out by the successful Ukrainian defense.”The analysts added that the Russians are “unlikely to launch operations to retake the northeast outskirts of Kharkiv liberated by Ukrainian forces in the near future.” They said that was partly because the Russians had reportedly destroyed three bridges as part of their retreat, something armies do only when they’ve decided they won’t try to cross in the other direction again any time soon.Synyehubov is less optimistic. The weapons can be used to identify who committed the crimes, as can any traces of DNA on them.Andrii Sharnin, the deputy chief of Kharkiv’s police investigation department, said Ukraine is steadily creating a database of Russian soldiers’ DNA — either through the Russian corpses the country has recovered or the troops it has captured.“Eventually — whether in two days or in two years — we’ll be able to determine the specific person who planted this mine,” Sharnin said.In the Sumy region north of Kharkiv, investigators collected evidence of Vadim Shishimarin allegedly firing several shots with a Kalashnikov rifle from a car and killing an unarmed 62-year-old resident in a village on Feb. 28, the Ukrainian prosecutor general said.