Hundreds of new graves appeared at the Wagner PMC cemetery in Kuban in two months

Over the past two months, hundreds of new graves have appeared at the cemetery in the village of Bakunskaya, Krasnodar Territory, where mercenaries of PMC “Wagner” who died in Ukraine are buried. This is evidenced by satellite images of the Maxar company, published by The New York Times journalist Christian Tribert.

On January 24, Tribert also published pictures of the cemetery. Comparing them with photographs from November 24, 2022, he came to the conclusion that the number of those buried had increased sevenfold – up to 170 buried. About eighty new graves appeared there in February.

The expansion of this cemetery since the beginning of the war is also monitored by local activist Vitaly Votanovsky. In early March 2023, he reported that 26 new graves appeared at the cemetery, and a total of 406 mercenaries of PMC “Wagner” were buried there. At the same time, as Votanovsky said at the end of March, relatives of about 20 fighters from other regions began to prepare documents for the exhumation of the bodies of their loved ones, not understanding why they were buried far from home without any notification.

Earlier, the authorities of the city and the region tried to prohibit further burials of “Wagnerovites” at the cemetery. On March 18, the head of the Goryachi Klyuch municipality, Sergey Belopolsky, claimed that the “Wagnerovtsev” cemetery had grown too much. He said that the resort town should not be turned into a mass burial site.

In response, Yevgeny Prigozhin threatened to “take measures” against the Hot Key administration. He also appealed to the Chairman of the State Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, and to the Prosecutor General of Russia, Ihor Krasnov, with demands to influence the situation.

On March 19, the next funeral of the PMC “Wagner” mercenaries who died in Ukraine took place at the Bakynskaya cemetery.

• PMC “Wagner” is a Russian unofficial military unit whose fighters have taken part or are taking part in military operations in Syria, Africa and Ukraine. The head of PMC “Wagner” is entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin, known for his friendship with President Vladimir Putin and the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
• Russian legislation prohibits the activities of private military companies. The authorities officially call the fighters of PMC “Wagner” volunteers. To participate in the war against Ukraine, the PMC recruited, according to estimates, tens of thousands of prisoners from Russian colonies. On Saturday, the amendments came into force, extending criminal responsibility for so-called discrediting and fakes and to negative publications about “volunteers”.