Last year, as Russia was forced out of areas of Ukraine it had occupied, thousands of Russian casualties were left behind. Since then small groups of Ukrainians, both military and civilian, have been trying to find and collect the bodies in order to send them back to Russia. FRANCE 24's correspondent Gulliver Cragg reports from Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Groups of Ukrainians, both military and civilian, are searching areas previously occupied by Russian forces before they were forced to retreat last year. They hope to find the bodies of Russian soldiers left on the battleground. Hundreds have already been collected, and hundreds more still lie in bogs and trenches.
"All the bodies we’ve found, we’re prepared to hand over in exchange for our own. I just really implore their relatives to start a protest movement," says “Jurist", a military-civilian cooperation officer with the Ukrainian Army who prefers to go by his military call sign.
The hope is that greater awareness of the high casualty rate may lead to less support for the war in Russia.
The corpses of the fallen Russian soldiers are gathered and taken to the morgue where they are identified and eventually returned to their families in Russia in exchange for Ukrainian bodies. The removal and identification of human remains prevents pollution of the environment and provides evidence for future war crimes trials.
Attention: this report contains images that some viewers may find disturbing.
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