Rows of crosses signal war’s true toll on Russia
More Wagner Group fighters laid to rest in desolate cemetery
BAKINSKAYA, Russia — It was a lonely funeral. Four narrow caskets, recently pulled from the back of a covered truck, rested on stands under snowfall as an Orthodox priest performed last rites. Three gravediggers in tattered jackets looked on with their hands folded solemnly. An excavator was parked close by.
“Lord have mercy,” the priest chanted as he blessed the bodies of fallen Russian soldiers with incense, his cassock buffeted by a freezing wind.
Once those corpses were lowered, four more dead soldiers in crimson-covered caskets were sung their last rites.
This is the final resting place for many of the men who lost their lives fighting for the private mercenary force known as Wagner, which has been leading the Russian military effort in the monthslong battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
Wagner’s founder, Evgeny Prigozhin, a tycoon who has a close relationship with President Vladimir Putin, has lauded his force as “probably the most experienced army in the world today.”
But the rapidly growing cemetery in Bakinskaya, a town near the Black Sea, is evidence that his mercenary army — which includes many poorly trained ex-convicts — is sustaining tremendous battlefield losses. On a recent weekday, nine men had their remains interred at this relatively new cemetery, established for Wagner recruits who had indicated that they preferred to be buried there.
In late 2022, activists were tipped off about the
heightened activity at this gravesite, which lies adjacent to a cemetery used by the local community. Then, it contained about 50 graves. Now, it has about 300, and those observing the cemetery say between four and eight soldiers are being buried per day, on average; local media estimates report as many as 16 graves per day.
Almost all the graves were identical, though occasionally a slim Muslim headstone stood at the head of the grave rather than an Orthodox cross. Each has a wreath of plastic flowers in the style of the Wagner logo — red, yellow and black with a golden star in the middle. Only one, the grave of Andrey Orlov, who died Dec. 15 at age 28, had a photograph, and an extra wreath of flowers.
Burials here were gaining little notice until late December, when an antiwar activist, Vitaly Wotanovsky, started publishing images of the cemetery, including the names and
dates of birth of the dead, on his Telegram channel. On New Year’s Day, photographs of Prigozhin laying flowers on the graves emerged.
Casualties began to increase, Wotanovsky said, as the battle for Bakhmut and the nearby village of Soledar intensified.
“Since November, the number of deaths has increased dramatically,” Wotanovsky, 51, said at his home in the nearby city of Krasnodar. In the past he had counted around four burials a day, he said, but noted that on one recent day there were 11.
Wotanovsky, who has spent 20 days in detention since the invasion began because of his anti-war activities, has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of his region’s cemeteries. He collects tips from local residents and keeps a running tally of the war dead buried in the area and posts pictures of the grave markers on his Telegram channel.
He said that informing the public about the names and identities of the fallen was his only way to protest and to try to change public opinion.
“This is the only normal, legal way to tell people that war is death, that it is bad, so that they somehow reflect on it in their heads,” said Wotanovsky, a Russian army veteran who spent years working for the military as a radio engineer.
Some observers have speculated that the graveyard is a public relations ploy by Prigozhin, who is increasingly seeking credit for capturing Ukrainian territory and is believed to harbor political ambitions.
“Unlike the general tendency in Russia, which is to try to minimize casualties and downplay the loss of life, Prigozhin is trying to promote the military heroism and sacrifice” of his soldiers, said Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at RUSI, a defense think tank in Britain, who studies the group.
Not far from the cemetery, a 20-minute ride along the region’s highway, stands a compound containing a chapel erected to commemorate the dead Wagner fighters. On a recent visit, the gates around the compound were completely shut. Videos of Prigozhin visiting the site have shown walls containing the cremated remains of an unknown number of fighters.
Another 10 minutes down the highway is the Molkino base, which observers say has been a training camp for Wagner soldiers since 2015. According to Russian media reports, the Ministry of Defense has spent at least $13.6 million developing the training facility.
The base is off limits to civilians, but soldiers in various uniforms were the main customers at several cafes, fast-food joints and a convenience store in the vicinity.
In Krasnodar, a city of 900,000 people, the war is never far away. Civil aviation has been suspended since last Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded, and fighter jets fly training missions overhead, complementing the ongoing tactical exercises at Molkino.
The Krasnodar area, with the third-biggest population of Russia’s 85 regions, has the second-highest number of cases of “discrediting the Russian army,” a common charge made against anyone who expresses opposition to the war. A repeat offense can result in up to 10 years in jail.
In one case making headlines and alarming local anti-war activists, a married couple discussed their opposition to the invasion between themselves as they dined at a restaurant. The establishment’s owner called the police, who charged the husband and wife with petty hooliganism. The wife was additionally accused of “discrediting” Russia’s army.
Despite the intimidating climate, Wotanovsky’s close friend, Viktor Chirikov, also an army veteran, believes the simple act of posting about the dead will eventually end the war and collapse the system Putin built.
“Do you know why the Russian Empire fell?” he asked. “Because of the number of coffins coming back from the First World War fronts to the villages where the fallen lived.”
“It’s one thing to watch on TV or the computer, ‘Oh, they are fighting there, they are killing there,’ like in computer shooting games,’’ he added. “But people start to ask, ‘Why are we doing this?’ when they see the coffin or grave of their school friends.”
The two men said they would continue to count the dead as casualties mount. At the cemetery in Bakinskaya, the plot appears to have room for many more bodies.
“They are still going to need more space,” Wotanovsky said.