Another mass grave discovered in liberated Lyman - governor

Another 200 graves and a mass grave have been discovered in the eastern Ukrainian town of Lyman, according to the military governor of the Donetsk region.

Pavlo Kyrylenko published photos on his Telegram channel on Friday evening showing emergency personnel wearing white protective suits in a cordoned-off area.

Exhumations had already begun, Kyrylenko wrote.

Russian troops gave up the strategically important city of Lyman last weekend.

According to initial findings, the dead could be both Ukrainian soldiers or civilians, it said. The exact number of bodies in the mass grave, among them several toddlers as well as entire families, is still to be determined, according to the police.

The discovery follows further deaths from the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhya.

At least 11 people died after shelling hit residential buildings in the city, according to Ukrainian authorities.

A further 21 residents were rescued from the rubble, some seriously injured, following the Russian attacks, the Ukrainian Civil Defence said on Friday.

The Zaporizhzhya region is one of four that were officially annexed by Russia last week, alongside Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk. Russian troops currently occupy around 70% of the region, but not the regional capital Zaporizhzhya itself.

With the war showing no sign of ending and increasing talk of nuclear threats, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday toned down his controversial statements on a "preventive strike" against Russia in a television interview.

"You must use preventive kicks," he told the British broadcaster BBC, apparently referring to sanctions, "not attacks."

Zelensky had caused a stir on Thursday with apparent calls for preemptive strikes against Russia.

In the BBC interview, Zelensky referred to possible Russian use of nuclear weapons: "They are not ready to do it, to use it. But they begin to communicate. They don't know whether they'll use or not use it. I think it's dangerous to even speak about it."

"We are not terrorists, we don't fight on another territory," Zelensky said. "Even after eight years blood tragedy" since the conflict in Crimea Ukrainians were not ready to "kill people like Russians do it."