According to CNN, satellite images of the area near a village in Russia show a rapidly expanding cemetery where many of those who died fighting on the side of the Wagner Group are buried.

Images of rows of fresh graves near the village of Bakunska in the Krasnodar Territory first began to appear on social media in December.

And on January 2, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti showed the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who visited the site and laid a wreath at one of the graves.

“Here we bury soldiers who indicated in their wills that they want to be buried here,” Prigozhin explained, RIA reports. “Or orphans and those whose bodies for some reason do not want to be taken away by their relatives.”

Satellite images taken on November 24, 2022 show three rows of graves on the new land. During Prigozhin’s visit in early January, he told RIA Novosti that 93 graves had been excavated. In another Maxar satellite image taken on January 24, the plot is already nearly full, with 14 additional rows.

Wagner’s mercenaries got into a long and exhausting battle with Ukrainian forces, captured the city of Soledar and are now taking part in the assault on the city of Bakhmut and the surrounding villages. Ukrainian officials say the Wagner sent waves of infantry into their positions and suffered heavy casualties.

The large number of victims earned this area the nickname “meat grinder”, and the Baku cemetery, which is growing rapidly, testifies to the high number of dead.

According to the founder of Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin, only some fighters of the group are buried there.

On Thursday, the US Treasury Department designated Wagner as a significant transnational criminal organization and imposed a series of sanctions on the transnational network that supports it.

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