Ukrainian police have launched a criminal investigation after three young people were photographed giving Nazi salutes at the Drobytsky Yar Holocaust memorial in Kharkiv, where more than 17,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

The disturbing image, which appeared on a popular Kharkiv Telegram channel on Wednesday, shows two men and a woman treading on a commemorative plaque while performing the offensive gesture at the solemn site.

Authorities have registered the case under Part 1 of Article 436-1 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, which prohibits the production and distribution of Nazi symbols and propaganda. If convicted, the perpetrators could face up to five years imprisonment.

Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov condemned the act as “a conscious desecration of memory, of humanity, and of Kharkiv itself.”

“Drobitsky Yar is not just a place – it is a wound in the heart of Kharkiv. It is silence that screams with the pain of thousands of innocent lives,” he wrote on his own Telegram channel.

Drobytsky Yar holds profound historical significance as a site of Holocaust atrocities. Before the Nazi invasion, Kharkiv was home to approximately 135,000 Jews. During the occupation, those who hadn’t fled were systematically executed, 200 to 300 daily, until the remaining Jewish population was decimated by February 1943.