Informator.lg.ua continues to study the problem of identification and reburial of bodies of Ukrainian soldiers who were killed on the East of Ukraine during ATO. We wrote before that some local city councils in ATO zone ignore problems related to identification, transportation and reburial of bodies of Ukrainian Heroes. Unfortunately those are not the only problems that relatives of missing or killed soldiers have.
We talked to the head of Civil-Military Office of Cooperation of Armed Forces of Ukraine Aleksey Nozdrachev about what kind of support is provided by Armed Forces of Ukraine to the relatives of soldiers, talked about procedure of identification of bodies in case it’s not possible to do by their appearance, how they bodies get found and transported from uncontrolled territory and out of ATO zone.
– How many bodies of Ukrainian soldier are taken out of ATO zone, how many of them are identified and how many are still missing?
– For today 650 bodies were taken out of there. As for identification I can’t talk about that as that’s out of my competence, identification is done via forensic-medical examination by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As far as I know by the end of August Bureau of Forensic Medicine of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhya identified about 250 bodies. There about 250 soldiers missing in Armed Forces of Ukraine. It doesn’t mean that all of them were killed. Probably some of them are POWs and we didn’t find out where they are located.
– What regulatory and legal framework do you use in your work?
– For us, soldiers, the basis is two orders of the Ministry of Defense: #333 and #40. Those are pretty recent orders that have instruction what unit commander should do in case the soldier is killed. Our cooperation with Ministry of Internal Affairs in search, exhumation, and identification of bodies of soldiers and transportation can be seen in open source on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and there are two algorithms: algorithm of search and identification of a body and algorithm of what relatives of soldiers should do in case the soldier is MIA and they suspect that he was killed. In case if a soldier is MIA or KIA his relatives go to the nearest police office. Based on their request police starts criminal investigation, and every relative can give his DNA sample for free. After DNA sample of a relative, that is usually a mother, father or one of the child of MIA soldier, is taken, those DNA sample get in centralized database. DNA samples of killed soldiers who were not identified base of appearance are also in that database. After DNA samples get in database, the program automatically 24 hours a day is searching for the match.
The second algorithm is this: Armed Forces of Ukraine together with military-civil groups have 2 search teams. One team is a group from Military-historic museum of Ukraine, the second group is from the union “People’s Memory” also known as “Black Tulip”. After unidentified bodies found on temporarily occupied territory or on the territory of ATO those bodies get delivered to laboratories of Forensic Medical Examination, there are 3 of them now, in Zaporizhya, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv. 90% of bodies get delivered to Dnipropetrovsk. After that criminal case is started and based on that investigator takes DNA sample and put it in centralized database. So this way two algorithms get synchronized.
– How comprehensive are the orders mentioned by you? Do you see some gaps in legal and regulatory framework at this stage?
Those documents regulate procedures and responsibility of people, but sure when they were approved we didn’t have a lot of experience, especially on temporary occupied territory. So we together with Security Service of Ukraine and Ministry of Internal Affairs initiate changes in documents. There are commissions that study those problems.
– We know cases when it was impossible to take DNA sample, for example when a soldier burnt in a tank. What do you do in such cases?
– Unfortunately there are problems like that, but not many. We are talking about maximum 1% out of all killed soldiers when it’s not possible to identify them.
In such cases Ukrainian laws have one way, relatives go to the court. And the court determines if the body belongs to this or that soldier. They use information from witnesses, members of search teams who took the body out of the conflict zone and so on. Unfortunately we have to admit that certain percentage of bodies will never be identified. In Ukraine now there is no technology of identification of soldiers who were killed in armored vehicles and tanks without witnesses. Those bodies are buried as unidentified soldiers of Armed Forces of Ukraine or Ministry of Internal Affairs.
– From the moment when relatives got death certificate, who is taking care of exhumation, reburial, transportation, etc.?
– As I said before, the role of the head of recruitment office and the role of commander in these questions are regulated by the order of the Minister of Defense. Commander of the unit is responsible for transportation and delivery of the body to the relatives. The head of recruitment office in this case not only notifies relatives, but he also organizes funerals. The Ministry of Defense provides coffins, uniform and so on. Sure starting from the last year local councils of all levels must include expenses on funerals of soldiers in special funds. So in most of the case local councils help with transportation and funerals. In case there are some problems with a head of recruitment office or with local council, we, management team of military-civil union together with representatives of civic associations and NGOs help relatives till the moment of funerals.
– In order to take the bodies out of uncontrolled territories this way or another we have to cooperate with representatives of “certain areas of Donetsk and Lugansk Regions”. Can you say on which level and how such communication is done?
– Our Management and groups of military-civil cooperation have open policy in questions of search and exhumation of bodies. In so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic” there is a commission that is dealing with POW and killed. Liliya Rodionova is out contact person. We keep dialog everyday to coordinate out work. That commission provides information support for our groups and they also provide security for search groups on uncontrolled territory.
– The sources of financing of your activity are limited by the state budget?
– Because search groups are representatives of museums or non-governmental organizations they have a right to attract sponsors to cover expensed during their work. We help those groups also, but sponsors provide most of the financial support, different funds, NGOs that organize the work of search teams.
– What problems family members of killed soldiers usually face and on what stages that happens?
– We help with different things to relatives of soldiers who come to us. But you should understand that in peaceful times such work was not organized. So today human factor is the biggest problem. The major problems related to our activities can be put into 3 different blocks.
First – search and exhumation of bodies. Here a lot of things depends on the information we have and how we can get more details.
After the body is transported to controlled territory and taken for a forensic medical examination there is another block of problems, taking DNA samples from relatives. That is don’t by investigation management of Ministry of Internal Affairs and regional and district investigation management. Sometimes the problem is that family members don’t have enough information from Ministry of Internal Affairs. Sometimes for religious reasons family members refuse to give DNA samples. There were cases when people were giving DNA sample, but refused to believe the results of the tests after the bodies of their relatives were identified.
The 3rd part is the block is related to organizing the funerals of killed soldiers.
Besides that, unfortunately, there are groups of people who call themselves volunteers, they speculate on the feelings of the relatives and to try to persuade them saying something like “Don’t believe DNA tests, we know for sure he is alive, give us money and we will find him”. Unfortunately there were cases like that, but in the last 6-8 months we actively work to locate such groups and eliminate them with the help of police.
Interviewed by Aleksey Chernov and Lana Kosach-Kvitka