Investigative Committee (SK) officers jointly with forensic experts retrieved the remains of 171 victims from makeshift graves in the Lugansk People’s Republic last week, said SK chairman Alexander Bastrykin.    “Last week alone, 101 war graves were examined. The bodies of 171 victims were exhumed; 132 people have already been identified,” Bastrykin said in an interview with TASS.   An SK officer has been included in the LPR Interdepartmental Working Group (MRG) for the search of burial sites of Ukrainian aggression victims, their identification and perpetuation of their memory, he said.   The MRG, together with activists of the social organization “We Won’t Forget, Won’t Forgive” exhumed the remains of about 100 civilians in the period from March through early May 2023, who were killed by Ukrainian artillery fire in the Severodonetsk area last year.   MRG Head Anna Soroka earlier said that the remains of 500 people were recovered from war graves in the Severodonetsk area from August through December 2022.   ***   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.   Russian 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