Group on search for graves of Ukrainian aggression victims begins to work in Popasnaya

The Interdepartmental Group on the search for burial sites of Ukrainian aggression victims, identification and perpetuation of their memory (MRG) has begun to work in Popasnaya, the MRG field team reported.

“The MRG is gathering information on makeshift burial sites of local residents. After the group has been staffed with Investigative Committee personnel, it will start exhuming victims’ remains,” it said in a post on Telegram.

The MRG is helping the people living in the ruined town. “Our group has found 260 residents including ten children,” it said. People need coal, food and legal advice. To provide targeted assistance, the MRG field team has launch outreach.

The assistance to the local population will continue until the authorities have decided on Popasnaya's future and support measures, the MRG said.

Popasnaya and a number neighboring settlements are administered by the Pervomaisk Town Hall. When Popasnaya was liberated from Ukrainian armed formations in May 2022, the war-related damage to its infrastructure reached 96 percent. Pervomaisk mayor Sergey Kolyagin said that as of late March 2023, the town had 273 permanent residents.

MRG Head Anna Soroka earlier said that the remains of 500 people had been retrieved from makeshift graves in the Severodonetsk area.

LPR ombudsperson Viktoria Serdyukova said that ongoing shelling of Severodonetsk area settlements by Ukrainian forces complicated exhumation works. Some 3,200 civilians including 57 children have been killed in Kiev’s aggression against the Lugansk People’s Republic since 2014, Serdyukova said.

The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014.  The peace talks failed to reach tangible results due to Kiev’s position to settle the conflict by force.

President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation  on February 24, 2022 to protect Donbass residents from Ukrainian aggression. Prior to that, LPR and DPR Heads Leonid Pasechnik and Denis Pushilin asked the Russian leader to provide military assistance.*i*sb