BBC News Russian: around 1,000 fighters buried across seven Wagner Group cemeteries

BBC News Russian has discovered that seven cemeteries designated for the mercenary Wagner Group exist across Russia and Ukraine’s occupied territories and have at least 995 fighters buried in them.

The mass graves are located in the Krasnodar region, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Samara region, Sverdlovsk region, Moscow region as well as near Luhanks, on the occupied territory of Ukraine.

According to BBC News Russian, slain Wagner mercenaries are normally buried near the places where their families live. However, there are at least several dozens of cases when the killed fighters were buried in other locations without notifying their close relatives.

“Judging by the available open data, many of the buried people were convicts who were still supposed to be serving their time in prison,” the report says.

According to the publication, court verdicts against 41 individuals have been published on Russian court websites, and they share the exact names with those buried in the Gusinoozyorsk cemetery in Novosibirsk. The majority of these individuals, whose names match those on the tombstones, were convicted of car theft and robbery.

Additionally, the BBC found court verdicts against 76 individuals who share the exact names with those buried in the Berezovsky cemetery in the Sverdlovsk region. Some of them were convicted of serious and particularly serious crimes.

According to publicly available data, members of the Wagner Group have suffered the highest losses compared to other participants in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Last week, journalists from Mediazona and BBC News Russian established, based on publicly available sources, that nearly 20,000 Russian military personnel have died in the war in Ukraine. Mediazona noted that 1,665 names were added to the list of casualties between 24 March and 7 April, which is the highest number for the entire duration of the war.