Operation "Black Tulip"

In the Donbass, they are looking for the dead military, the "International Amnesty" submitted a report on extrajudicial reprisals

Before the start of hostilities in the Donbass, members of the All -Ukrainian Public Organization of Soyuz “People’s Memory” were mainly engaged in burials of the Second World War. Now the organization’s employees work in the Donbass and exhumes the remains of the Ukrainian military who died in the war zone.

Separatists call their operation "Black Tulip" and do not allow touching the burial of the army killed in the battles of the Ukrainian army and volunteers. This allowed for almost two months to discover the remains of more than 150 dead. According to one of the employees of the mission, Igor Slyusar , who recently returned from Donbass, the search engines conducted the exhumation of the bodies of the dead in most areas of the Donetsk region, where fierce battles took place and the Ukrainian military fell into the environment: Snezhnoye, Shakhtersk, Zugras, Ilovaysk, Mospino, Ambrosievka.

“Could you tell you more about how you manage to find burials?”

Passport found at the death site of the Ukrainian military in the Donbass

- At first we get information. It is provided by both the Ministry of Defense, with the support of which we carry out these works, so the participants in the events or their relatives themselves. In fact, we can also find other locations - with the help of local residents or separatists. It often happens that the bodies of the dead are found when our search group is in some area, and at this time they are harvested on the field or some restoration work is carried out. Locals also come to contact with us, they understand the importance of our work and help us.

- Why, after the fighting, the military does not take the dead with them?

-At some point, one of the warring parties, and we work only in the territory controlled by the separatists, came to contact, gave the bodies. But then the condition was set for the evacuation to be engaged in third -party people, not the military. Therefore, civilians connected to this work, but it is carried out by mutual agreement. We are greeted in a certain site, we are allocated to us - armed people who are constantly with us for our safety, so that nothing to happen to our representatives. Because cases can be different. On the territory controlled by the separatists, there are many armed people, different groups, sometimes it is not safe to explain who we are and why we are here.

Bullet does not ask the address

-When you were in this territory, did you fall under the shelling or in a situation that threatened life?

- Yes, it happened. Once nearby, Grad worked, there was a mortar shelling. The work is not easy. The bullet does not ask the address. She flies as she wants, as well as a shell released from any gun. So the risk in this work is present.

- Did you find only the burials of the Ukrainian military or also the burials of the separatists?

- We basically specialize in finding the burial of Ukrainian soldiers. We saw their burials, but we did not exhum them. Nobody set such tasks for us.

In the Ukrainian army, until recently, only officers had "mortal" tokens. Warrantilers and ordinary people did not have

- Do you have problems with the identification of bodies?

- Unfortunately, this is a common problem. Because there are no "mortal" tokens as such. If in the American or German army, in NATO countries, in the same Russia, every soldier has identification tokens, then in the Ukrainian army until recently they had only officers. Ensigners and ordinary people did not have them. Because of this, the identification of military personnel is complicated. We solve this problem in such a way that, if possible, we examine the territory where the bodies of the dead are found. Sometimes we find documents nearby: a passport or a military ID, and sometimes-just records made by someone in a notebook. If the separatists discovered the body, they give us the necessary information, provide documents that were found next to the body. Recently, however, they stopped picking up documents. But it happened that we found the bodies of our troops and simply paid attention to the fact that some kind of strokes torn to shreds were lying nearby. We made them in pieces. These were military tickets and passports of these guys.

- In the near future, do you plan to expand your activities? Or at the moment do you know where there are burials, and in the near future the exhumation will be completed?

- Unfortunately, it is impossible to complete it in the near future, because we have many appeals from relatives who are looking for missing fathers, sons [on the “folk memory” of the search portal for the missing - information about almost 200 disappeared in the Donbass]. In the future, in any case, we will have to check the information received. And, despite the fact that cold is already coming, we will try to conduct an exhumation until the last moment. We cannot just say the relatives of the dead that the weather is preventing us from working. Therefore, the guys with a risk to life go to Donbass.

Exhumation in the Donbass

- What, according to your observations, the situation on the territory controlled by separatists?

- A fairly calm situation. We have not seen any chaos. Trying to carry out recovery work. During our first trip, they treated us wary, but now they do not interfere, and even no one is trying to tell us about their political views. So far, we see how people are trying to survive in this situation, restore their dwellings, solve internal problems about the police, and with the arrangement, and with the search for work, and so on. We stopped in one of the areas where we were told that one plant had already earned, and hoped that life would work out. People are waiting for peace. But how long this world will last, how long this silence will be is unknown.

A truce announced in August made it possible to accelerate the exhumation of the bodies of the dead in the Donbass, and non -governmental organizations - to verify the facts of violation of international law. On October 20, the Ukrainian branch of the international amnesty was published on October 20 dedicated to extrajudicial executions during the conflict in the east of Ukraine. It states that intentional murders were not committed by the pro -Russian separatists and the Ukrainian military, but their scale is not as large as Russian printed publications and television channels report. As an example, the report provides the results of the audit, begun after the Russian media reported on September 23 to discover the burial of 400 dead separatists in the Kommunar and the Lower Kryanka - the settlements of the Donetsk region, which are over two

Burial in the lower roof

The days before were under the control of the Ukrainian forces. In particular, it was reported to detect a woman’s body with traces of violence and a pregnant local resident. Investigated by what happened was called by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov. Employees of the International Amnesty went to this area on September 26, but they discovered the mass burial of four men - local residents and five separatists. The combat comrades of the dead reported that death occurred during the battles. As for the four buried men, it was really about a non -court execution committed by either Ukrainian troops or volunteer battalions, ”said Tatyana Mazur, head of the Ukrainian branch of the International Amnesty. She also confirmed the information about two extra -court reprisals committed by pro -Russian separatists: on May 19, a deputy from the Batkivshchy party Vladimir Rybak and Kiev Student Yuri Upravko were killed near the village of Donetsk region, and two prisoners were killed on July 22 in Severodonetsk.

As the representative of the International Amnesty emphasized John Dalkhoyisen , there are no information about many cases of extrajudicial executions, and the data about others were deliberately distorted: “It is obvious that some shocking cases reported by the Russian media were extremely swollen. Instead of speculatively accusing each other of crimes, the parties should rather concentrate on investigation and outrage Enthusiasmous forces by him, Russian statements about the "mass burials" in the lower Krynka are not in reality - this is an example of what level the accusations are inflated in the propaganda war, "Dalhoisen said.