MENU
Documenting
war crimes in Ukraine

The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Road over unmarked graves

13.07.2010   
As reported already, on 2 July human remains were found in Kharkiv’s Gorky Park at the site where workmen are carrying out the illegal instructions of the Kharkiv authorities. Deadlines outweigh the law and fundamental human decency and the remains are being dug back

As reported already, on 2 July human remains were found in Kharkiv’s Gorky Park at the site where workmen are carrying out the illegal instructions of the Kharkiv authorities and felling trees, supposedly in order to build a road  

Yevhen Zakharov points out that it had long been known that in this area there are the remains of soldiers of the Wehrmacht who were killed in the summer of 1943. In 1994-1995 an exhumation and reburial was carried out, however not all the remains were found.

During the first two days after the first discovery, the Park’s defenders counted more than 50 fragments of human skeletons and insisted that they be handed over for forensic examination.

The author stresses that there are two agreements between Ukraine and Germany regarding care of graves. The construction work needed to be stopped, the remains exhumed and reburied.

Instead the workmen said that they were under verbal instructions to not pay attention to the remains, and they simply dug them in again. This was confirmed in an interview to journalist Olha Kalenychenko by the foreman Maxim Dudorov. He also said “around a thousand trees were felled and not 503 like the documents say, however that’s legal”. Mr Dudorov went on to say that according to the plan the work has to be done by 23 August, and they will do it in spite of the “greens” (i.e. the protesters), at any price.

The same, he says, applies to the human remains.

Yevhen Zakharov stresses that the actions are clearly unlawful since the police needed to be informed, and the latter in turn were obliged to protect them and hand them to experts. It is also from any moral vantage point total barbarism, as is the destruction of the trees in the first place.

 Share this