In the small town of Bakunskaya, in his Russian district KrasnodarNear Black Sea, the provincial cemetery is located. Residents of the city tell how recently funerals have become more frequent here. The sea of ​​crosses one encounters upon entering intercedes for them. Indeed, this small cemetery was for some time the last resting place of the Wagner Group fighters fighting in Ukraine, who in recent weeks have led a fierce Russian effort to capture the eastern town of Bakhmut.

Despite the fact that the founder of the group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Kremlin official and close to Vladimir Putincharacterized Wagner as “probably the most experienced military man in the world right now”, it seems that the losses he has suffered lately are enormous. The Wagner team, recruited by former convicts and soldiers, little trained in combat, loses people every day. “There are from four to eight funerals a day, and up to 16 are held on one day,” residents say about the Baku cemetery. At the end of last year, there were 50 graves in the cemetery. They say there are over 300 now.

All the graves are the same, deeply dug in fresh snow, above them a wooden cross or, more rarely, a Muslim tablet. They are based on a bouquet of plastic flowers according to the scheme of the Wagner group. Black, yellow, red and gold star in the middle.

Burials in the area did not receive much attention until late December, when activist Vitaliy Votanovsky began posting images of the cemetery on his Telegram channel, including the names and dates of birth of the dead. Ten days later, on New Year’s Day, photographs of Yevgeny Prigozhin visiting a cemetery and laying flowers on graves began to circulate. It was Votanovsky who reported that during the battle in Bakhmut and the neighboring village of Solentar, funerals in Bakuskaya quickly became more frequent.

Way of protest

He stated that the publication of the names and dates of birth of the dead, as well as photographs of their graves, is the only way to protest and try to change public opinion.

Despite the intimidating atmosphere, Votanovsky believes that the simple act of commemorating the dead will ultimately lead not only to the end of the war, but to the collapse of the system that Putin has built.

“Do you know why the Russian Empire fell?” he said, chatting with us in his kitchen. “Because of the number of coffins that were returned from the fronts of the First World War to the villages where the fallen lived,” he commented meaningfully. “It’s different when you see it on TV or on your computer and you say, ‘Oh, there they fight, there they kill,’ like in video games,” he added. “But people are starting to ask, ‘Why are we doing this?’ when they see the coffin of an old classmate.