"More and more new graves." Who was buried in Mariupol?

What is known about the new graves that appeared in Mariupol after the invasion of Russia? Is it possible to determine the exact number of dead residents of Mariupol? Where are the dead Russian soldiers buried in the occupied territories of Ukraine and why are they not taken to Russia? The Radio Sloboda project "News from Priazovle" found out about it.
New mass graves were found in Mariupol this spring and tracked on updated Google maps. This was announced on his Telegram channel by the mayor's advisor Petro Andryushchenko. According to him, a detailed map of all cemeteries in Mariupol was developed and new sectors of mass burials were found at the Novotroica cemetery. The sectors are visually larger than the mass graves in Vinogradne or Manguš.
The city council of Mariupol reported on May 12 that the number of cemeteries in the city is increasing. In particular, the cemetery of Old Crimea has a large sector with new graves. In sector #21, the number of new graves has increased significantly. This may indicate an increase in mortality, as the level of medical care in Mariupol is declining. The lack of specialists and modern equipment means that people do not receive qualified help, the City Council notes.
"More and more new graves." Who was buried in Mariupol?
What is known about the new graves that appeared in Mariupol after the invasion of Russia? Is it possible to determine the exact number of dead residents of Mariupol? Where are the dead Russian soldiers buried in the occupied territories of Ukraine and why are they not taken to Russia? The Radio Sloboda project "News from Priazovle" found out about it.
New mass graves were found in Mariupol this spring and tracked on updated Google maps. This was announced on his Telegram channel by the mayor's advisor Petro Andryushchenko. According to him, a detailed map of all cemeteries in Mariupol was developed and new sectors of mass burials were found at the Novotroica cemetery. The sectors are visually larger than the mass graves in Vinogradne or Manguš.
The city council of Mariupol reported on May 12 that the number of cemeteries in the city is increasing. In particular, the cemetery of Old Crimea has a large sector with new graves. In sector #21, the number of new graves has increased significantly. This may indicate an increase in mortality, as the level of medical care in Mariupol is declining. The lack of specialists and modern equipment means that people do not receive qualified help, the City Council notes.
"The so-called 21st sector in Old Crimea is the Mariupol cemetery. New cemetery in the village of Manguš, 18 kilometers from Mariupol. The new burial sector on the left bank is the village of Vinogradne, next to Mariupolje, it is actually part of the city. New mass graves immediately appeared in our old cemetery - this is the so-called necropolis, but now everyone has already been exhumed from there and reburied in the Old Crimea. And now, after updating Google Maps, we recently found a new sector in the left closed cemetery, we still can't figure out who is buried there," Andryushchenko said.

"They hide the number of dead"
Dead Russian soldiers are usually taken away from Mariupol, he says. As for dead civilians, sometimes their bodies are exhumed. Organizing a funeral in Mariupol costs 20,000 to 25,000 Russian rubles, Andryushchenko said.
"What are they doing there with the corpses? If it is about corpses in a multi-storey building that needs to be demolished, nothing is done, the building is simply demolished and the corpses are thrown away with the construction waste, if there are fewer corpses and they are in such a condition that they can be buried again... Sometimes they exhume, sometimes they simply do nothing, they pretend that no corpses have been found. How to find if you don't know where to look? All this data is closed, sometimes it is allowed to search for something - you yourself have to recognize the corpse among thousands of corpses, tens of thousands, the one you are looking for. Just go and get the certificate, because you don't have your documents. That's why all this is a big problem," Andryushchenko said.
It is not yet known how many people died in Mariupol. Russian occupation forces have a database that may contain more accurate information, but they are carefully hiding it, Andryushchenko added.
"They protect it almost like a coded suitcase for nuclear weapons. We even tried to buy him through our people, with a bribe, but it was impossible. FSB officers are really serious about this. "If you look closely, the Russian side has never published a single figure regarding the dead in Mariupol," Andryushchenko pointed out.
Given the hostilities and the Russian occupation of parts of the southern territories of Ukraine, the media cannot obtain official confirmation of some of the statements made or independently verify them.
"The body was left in the garage"
Evelina Konovka, a resident of Mariupol, told "Novosti iz Priazovia" that she lost her husband during Russian shelling in March last year. There was no way to bury him then.
"On March 14, around five in the morning, he ran to the garage for the second time, because the shelling had stopped a little. An explosion rang out and it became clear to me that my husband was not coming back. "My husband died, most likely, immediately, because his right leg was torn off, his left arm was torn off, he had a piece of shrapnel in his heart," said the woman. 
"And there was still a frost of -10 degrees, the ground was frozen. We were leaving the city on March 20 and I saw his body for the last time. As the neighbors who stayed in Mariupol later told me, my husband's body lay there until April 25 or 26. Namely, since March 20, the body had been lying on the street for more than a month. Then representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, DPR ("DPR" is an illegal armed group, recognized as a terrorist group in Ukraine - ed.) or "asvabaditiels" of Russia came and took the body away. And although the neighbors told them who it was, they mentioned that it would be a body with a number," said Konovka.

"Money Laundering for the Dead"
Evelina later managed to find out that her husband was allegedly buried in one of the mass graves in Mariupol. But to find out which one, you have to go back to the occupied city.
"These officials of the new "authority" in Mariupol told us to come and do a DNA test to find out in which grave he was buried. Or see the photos listed. They have a body catalog, 80,000 people, you can come and see. The bodies in that "morgue" lay in the sun, without a refrigerator, not even covered. It was a terrible sight, those who were there said that the stench was terrible, there was poison for the corpses, you had to walk in rubber boots," said Konovka.
The occupation authorities give information about the dead residents of Mariupol only for money, says Evelina.
"Acquaintances say that they are asking for money for these examinations and literally in three days they will tell where the body is based on the DNA examination, but that is unrealistic. Knowing how such an interrogation takes place in Kiev, when there are not so many dead, not even three days pass. This is simple money laundering for people who want to somehow calm down, find out, believe that this is their relative. I can't even imagine how people can recognize a person who has been lying under the sun for a month and a half. I saw the pictures of the bodies, what happens to them afterwards. It is very difficult to recognize", says the resident of Mariupol.

Natural cemeteries in Donbass
Director of the Institute for Strategic Research and Security, human rights activist Pavlo Lisyanskyi told "Novosti Priazovya" that at least seven new cemeteries are known in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions where, as it is assumed, Russian soldiers are buried.
"Many new cemeteries appeared. Cemeteries that have been expanded in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, there are new plots for the expansion of cemeteries, which were allocated by the occupying power. There are also spontaneous cemeteries. They are probably related to the fact that the Russians hid their dead, murdered occupiers, they simply did not want them to be counted as murdered, because it is necessary to pay the money to the families. Therefore, they were buried in spontaneous cemeteries, somewhere on plantations, or the bodies were destroyed in factories, in crematoriums, that's how it was in the beginning," said Lisjanskji.
In this way, Russia hides the true number of dead soldiers, the human rights defender believes. He says they are either considered missing or "on assignment."
"The Kremlin saves money, payments to the families of the dead, and so it is good for everyone, except for those who were mobilized and for people whose relatives were mobilized. They spontaneously buried, forgot everything and hid the real numbers. They said that the group went on a mission, but so far they have not been contacted and that's all, but they are reporting to the Kremlin that these people have not died, but they are still performing some tasks," explains Lisyanskyi.
"They convince the bodies to be cremated"
Lisjanskji also notes that the organization of civilian funerals is a business from which the occupation administrations make money. 
"In principle, there is such a business of funeral services everywhere. But they have a certain order for today, they have overcrowded morgues, the Russians persuade people not to bury, but to cremate, so as not to take up space in the cemetery. So now they have a problem where to set up new cemeteries", claims the human rights defender.
The bodies of dead Russian soldiers are still found in the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the human rights activist added.
"If the locals find the remains, they call the occupation authorities, and if the occupation authorities find them, they contact the army, the army already decides what to do with those bodies. As for how they are identified, they may not be identified at all. "The Russian Federation is not interested in finding, identifying and confirming the identity of those killed in its army," said Lisjanskyi.

Crimea: "quietly hidden"
Viktorija Veselova, a journalist of the Radio Liberty Krym.Realii project, said that the Russian authorities are trying to hide the facts about the death of Russian soldiers on the occupied peninsula.
"If the bodies of dead Russian soldiers are brought to Crimea, they are buried very quietly, without echoes, without media coverage. And it is usually possible to find out about their death only after a very long time," says the journalist.
She noted that after a funeral, it can be several months before it is known that a person has died.
“How can you find out? This was done in such a way that the occupying authorities of Crimea organize mourning events in memory of these people and dedicate memorial plaques or other monuments to them. And this is how you can find out that this person fought against Ukraine, died and was buried in Crimea," Veselova added.
"300 burials identified"
So far, journalists have managed to identify about 300 such burials, but their number may be higher, she says. 
"These figures coincide with the data of the representative office of the President of Ukraine in the ARC, which keeps its own statistics. "How many Russian soldiers died during the invasion of Ukraine and were buried in Crimea, that number is unknown because they are hiding," Veselova added.
According to her, the dead Russian soldiers were buried in all areas of the occupied Crimea. However, now there is no free access to these burials, so that journalists could see how widespread this phenomenon is and whether special sections for the Russian army are being created in the cemeteries. The journalist is convinced that it is profitable for the Russian occupation authorities to hide the number of dead.
"In order not to create a negative mood in society, they actively hide the number of their dead," Veselova added.
Journalists of the BBC Russian service, together with Mediazone and a group of volunteers, managed to establish the names of 24,005 Russian soldiers who died during the invasion of Ukraine.
The greatest number of losses in recent months are in units made up of prisoners, the researchers point out. Currently, the names of 4,315 dead ex-prisoners are known. There are known data on the death of 2,293 mobilized Russians - 60 percent of them died in the period from December 1. Sverdlovsk and Krasnodar Krai of Russia continue to lead in the number of confirmed losses.
The Ministry of Defense of Russia does not disclose data on human losses and does not comment on the figures published by journalists.
At the same time, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine announced that by the morning of May 26, Russia had lost 205,720 of its soldiers since the beginning of the war.
Ukraine, too, does not disclose data on its losses. In March, the American newspaper The Washington Post, citing unnamed American and European officials, wrote that Ukraine's losses in the war reportedly amounted to 120,000 dead and wounded soldiers. The secretary of the parliamentary committee for national security, defense and intelligence Roman Kostenko called these data exaggerated.