Zelensky says Russia has seized mobile crematoriums

Members of pro-Russian forces in illegal uniforms gather around a fire in the separatist-held settlement of Mykolaivka (Nikolaevka) as Russia continues its offensive on Ukraine.

Photo: Reuters/Alexander Ermoshenko

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that Russian forces had sent rooms to cremate the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in battles in the invaded country and had not sent the bodies. Zelensky even wondered if the Russian dead were being counted. “They brought chambers for cremation,” he said. “They will not send the bodies back to their families and their mothers.”

In addition to the Ukrainian leader, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the British newspaper telegrapha week before Zelensky, that Russia would use mobile crematoriums in the invasion, but there is no stated evidence of use.

The British Ministry of Defense has released footage of a vehicle-mounted crematorium that can accommodate one body at a time. The video was posted by telegraph It was originally published in 2013 by the Russian company Turmaline, located in Saint Petersburg. On its website, the company says it makes machines for “biological waste (crematoriums, including furniture)”.

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace even suggested to telegraph Using the system could be a way for the Kremlin to cover up any future losses in the fighting.

The first rumors about the possible use of such a resource by the Russians date back to 2015, when the then head of the Ukrainian Security Agency, Valentin Nalyavichenko, said that seven mobile crematoriums had entered areas occupied by rebel armies in Ukraine in January. He said the units could burn “eight to ten bodies a day”.

Speaking to Ukrainian media, Naliavichenko said that the phone service received a large number of Russian citizens who were looking for their relatives or the country’s soldiers who were sent to Ukraine.

That same year, the former chairman of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Mac Thornberry, told Bloomberg in 2015 that Russia was using mobile crematoria to hide deaths from the world and from Russians themselves. He said he had seen the evidence but could not comment on classified information.