Activists of the Interdepartmental Working Group (MRG) on the search for burial sites of Ukrainian aggression victims, their identification and perpetuation of memory and “We Won’t Forget, Won’t Forgive social organization activists have exhumed the remains of about 100 Severodonetsk area residents who were killed in Ukrainian artillery attacks last year, said MRG Head Anna Soroka.
“We’ve retrieved some 100 remains from March to April; they are civilians <...>mostly in the towns of Lisichansk and Popasnaya,” Soroka said adding that some victims had gunshot wounds.
“Many civilians were killed by sniper fire,” TASS quoted her as saying.
The MRG uses a hotline to get information on burial sites. “We obtain more accurate location data and pass the coordinates to the authorities because we’re a civil mission and have no engineers or equipment to evacuate the remains,” Soroka said.
The Group, assisted by “We Won’t Forget, Won’t Forgive” activists is working in the Lisichansk-Severodonetsk area where it exhumes the remains of killed coalition forces servicemen and Ukrainian troops.
The MRG finds and retrieves remains of Ukrainian gunmen as part of exchange arrangements with Kiev. It continues to gather information on mass and makeshift graves but a lack of funding hampers the exhumation which currently relies on volunteers, she said.
Soroka earlier said that the Group had exhumed the remains of 500 people in the Severodonetsk area in the period from August through December 2022.
LPR ombudsperson Viktoria Serdyukova said that ongoing Ukrainian artillery attacks on Severodonetsk area settlements complicate the exhumation of bodies of Ukrainian aggression victims. As of March 2, 2023 some 3,200 civilians including 57 children had become victims of Kiev’s aggression against the Lugansk People’s Republic since 2014, she 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.
The Lugansk People’s Republic acceded to Russia on September 30, 2022 following the unification referendum.*i*v
