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 six Lugansk People’s Republic militiamen shot dead by Kiev forces outside Severodonetsk in the summer of 2022.
“Today, we’ve retrieved six remains, supposedly, they were mobilized LPR servicemen,” said MRG Head Anna Soroka. “One has been identified; he is Gennady Gilyazov, a native of Lozovsky township of the Slavyanoserbsk district; we’ll use it as a starting point.”
“Those who were killed here are our heroes. We believe that the militiamen were on their knees as they were shot and killed by beastly Ukrainian servicemen, because they lay face down with knees bent,” she added.
Initial examination found bullet holes in victims’ skulls. Russian Investigative Committee officers recorded the evidence at the scene. The case will be investigated.
Russian army Lt-Col Andrey Tikhonov said that the militiamen had been taken prisoner in clashes for Severodonetsk suburbs.
“According to local residents, (the captured LPR militiamen) refused to obey (Kiev nationalists’) orders to chant something or do something, so they were taken to this big pit in a wooded place, shot dead and dumped here,” he said.
Later on, local residents put up a cross at the mass grave despite mine danger, he said.
Earlier, the MRG exhumed the remains of ten civilians outside Severodonetsk.
Soroka who is an advisor to the LPR head, said that the Group 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 shelling of Severodonetsk area settlements by Ukrainian forces complicates the exhumation of bodies of Ukrainian aggression victims. According to her information, some 3,200 LPR residents including 57 children had been killed in the LPR as a result of Kiev aggression in the period from 2014 to March 2, 2023.
The Ukrainian government launched the so-called anti-terrorist operation against Donbass in April 2014. The peace talks that began soon thereafter 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 to protect Donbass residents from Ukrainian aggression on February 24, 2022. 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
