Media post photos of mass burial site of Wagner Group mercenaries near Irkutsk, Russia

Ukrainska Pravda
Updated ·2 min read
31

Journalists discovered two mass burial sites of the occupiers, including the members of the Wagner Group, near the city of Irkutsk in Russia.

Source: Russian media outlet Liudi Baikala (People of Baikal)

Details: Both sites are located at the Alexandrovskoe cemetery in Irkutsk. There was no information about one of them before. The first one is the Alley of Heroes consisting of 13 tombs near the central entrance, the second one consists of 53 graves of the Wagner Group mercenaries in a remote corner of the cemetery.

At least 10 out of 13 people buried in the first site used to reside in Irkutsk Oblast. Journalists were not able to find out the origin of three more of them. Only 6 out of 13 persons are on the list of the deceased composed by Liudi Baikala, their obituaries were published in open sources. There were no reports about the death of the rest.

At least three of the soldiers buried in the Alley of Heroes are volunteers, two of them were mobilised, and one was a contractor. They all died within the period from December 2022 to March 2023. The youngest of them is Dmitry Vasiliev, 19 years old, who signed a contract after two months of military service and died on 3 December 2022, and the oldest is 53 years old – Igor Novosyolov who died on 12 December.

There are five rows of graves. The 6th one is being prepared with more than 10 empty graves having been dug.

Out of 53 members of the Wagner Group buried in the second site, only 5 are on the list composed by the journalists; their obituaries were published on social media or in district newspapers.

Seventeen soldiers buried in the Wagner Group cemetery were born or lived in Zabaikalye Oblast, 20 – in Irkutsk Oblast, 11 – in Buryatia.

At least 43 deceased soldiers were convicts aged from 20 to 62 years. Their prison sentences are in open court databases. 17 members of the Wagner Group were convicted for murder, the rest – on robbery and drug charges. The journalists were not able to confirm the conviction of 10 more.

Only a few graves of the Wagner Group members have photographs on them. Family members of some of them only learned about their death from the journalists.

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