Moscow activists report finding fresh graves of Russian soldiers
Opposition activists in Moscow say they have discovered fresh graves of several Russian Special Forces officers. The accusation comes as Russia's Defense Ministry continues to deny that Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine -- despite the recent capture in Luhansk of a pair who identified themselves as Russian officers.
Activists Ruslan Leviev and Vadim Korovin say they decided to launch their own investigation into the deaths of Russian servicemen in Ukraine. To back their accusations, they released photographs and video from a graveyard in Tambov Oblast, where a soldier identified as Anton Savelyev was recently buried.
“This is our response to Russian propaganda that says there are no troops in Ukraine,” Leviev told the Kyiv Post by phone. “We want to show society that our Defense Ministry is literally abandoning its own troops by disavowing them like this. … We are showing society the consequences of this war.”
A
video of the grave shows a photograph of a young man in full military uniform, the mound of dirt over the grave adorned with flowers and a large wreath.
“To the defender of the Fatherland, from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation,” the wreath reads.
An information request sent to the Russian Defense Ministry on the graves in Tambov wasn’t immediately answered.
Leviev said two other graves had been discovered so far: one in Tatarstan and one in the Kurgansk region. Apart from Savelyev, officers Timur Mamayusupov and Ivan Kardapolov were also identified as recently deceased.
The three servicemen were allegedly from the 16th special operations brigade of the Russian military intelligence, and “served together, were friends, and they all died together on May 5, 2015 in Ukraine,” Leviev said.
According to him and Korovin, the three men were all buried on May 10 and they had likely died in fighting that took place from May 4-5 in eastern Ukraine.
That fact was partly backed up by Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko, who posted photographs on Facebook of Russian weapons discovered after a battle in Novotroyitske, not far from Volnovakha in Donetsk Oblast.
“Russian diversionists tried to come towards Ukrainian soldiers. There were about eight in the group… A battle broke out, spetznaz-style, quick. Six of the eight Russians were left lying in the grass. Two fled,” he wrote, noting that the battle occurred on May 4.
Tsaplienko also published several photos of Russian weapons said to have been found at the scene, including a
Kizlyar combat knife “so beloved by members of Russia’s GRU (military intelligence).”
According to activist Korovin, there are likely many other fresh graves throughout Russia that the public is not yet aware of.
“We can assume, since the fighting was very intense, that if we have information of three people dying in the same place, three people who were friends and died at the same time, the losses might actually be much more substantial,” Korovin said in a video of the gravesite posted on YouTube.
“Only by attracting the public’s attention to these freshly dug graves can we stop the war, or at least influence it,” he said.
“It was a very difficult process” to track down the graves, Leviev said, adding that it all started when he received a message on social media saying a Russian soldier had recently been killed.
“Then we spoke to friends and acquaintances and found out he was from Tambov, so we came here not even knowing where to look for the grave,” he said, noting that these three soldiers were in no way connected to the two officers recently detained in Ukraine.
The social media pages of Mamyusupov’s mother confirmed that her son had been killed, with numerous photographs of the young man in military attire captioned with mournful messages such as, “Timur, we will never forget you” or “Never forget.”
In response to a question on her
page about what had happened to Timur, one of his relatives replied: “He died on a military assignment.”
This is not the first time during the conflict that Russian activists have uncovered the graves of servicemen killed in mysterious circumstances.
In August, journalists in Russia flocked to a cemetery in Pskov Oblast, where a local newspaper reported a secret burial of several paratroopers likely killed in Ukraine.
Several journalists were threatened or attacked while trying to get to the bottom of the secret burials, and Lev Shlosberg, a local politician and publisher who first spoke out about the mystery of the killed paratroopers, was badly beaten in late August, shortly after publishing an investigation into the funerals.
The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly denied sending actively serving troops to Ukraine, saying those who have been captured or killed on Ukrainian territory were either retired, discharged or had gone to fight as volunteers.
Before posting once again Kiev propaganda why dont you check the facts?Do you know how your "facts" have been acquired?Compilation of all fakes since last spring.Do you know who delivered part of the lies you are posting?Certain Parubij -the same one who has commanded Maidan snipers
Why i should spread Kyiv Propaganda ? Russian Soldiers have been captured in Ukraine and its open fact that Russian military is being involved in the chaos inside Ukraine.
