Russia
Little work has been done on the mass grave practices of the Вооружённые Си́лы Росси́йской Федера́ции, better known in English as the Russian Armed Forces. From the Afghanistan conflict to the wars in Chechnya and now Ukraine, Russian troops have been implicated in numerous human rights abuses and war crimes stretching from rape, torture, and wholesale slaughter of civilians. Little information pertaining to mass graves has escaped Afghanistan. The current government led by the Taliban has dug up numerous Russian mass graves, some with hundreds of individuals. However, the graves have not been properly recorded, archaeologically or photographically, and all the information that could have been gleaned has been lost. In Chechnya, Russia’s war crimes are significantly more documented, although Russian officials have been very slow to investigate claims, and slower still to excavate remains. The organisation Victims of War, in just two years from March 1995 to 1997, participated in the mass exhumations of nearly a thousand individuals, with countless more lying in around 80 reported mass graves in the region. Since then, numbers have increased, however there is still a paucity of information about the subject, largely attributable to the influence Russia still exerts through its current puppet government in Grozny. However, through photographic evidence and witness reports, we can build a picture of the mechanisms of Russian military human rights abuses in Chechnya, and then connect it to their current activity in Ukraine. Their patterns, habits and fingerprinting, allow us to connect them to other conflicts Russia is involved in, with great significance for war crime investigation.
Russian soldiers look at a mass grave in Chechnya. Note the narrow trench profile and mechanical digger marks.
First Russian
Marker:
Connection to, and often close location to, military and detention centres.
Whilst plenty of killing goes on in streets and houses, these victims are likely to be left where they are. But when the military has a central location for the interrogation and execution of suspects, or just as often, whoever they feel like torturing, it is necessary to dispose of the bodies in bulk. Located outside Grozny, the main Russian base during the wars was at the Khalkala airfield. Just a kilometre south, the abandoned garden village of Dachny was used as a dumping ground for the tortured bodies of victims. In urban Grozny itself, a former school for the deaf was repurposed and its basement used as a torture centre, from which the corpses would be sent out for burial. In occupied and liberated Ukrainian areas, there are accounts of similar torture and detainment centres with equally prodigious body outputs. Where these centres are identified, it is highly likely a mass grave site will be within close driving distance. This is supported by our calculations of the data of known Russian mass graves in Ukraine which shows that only 8% of them are located outside of the city limits. It is in cities that these detention and execution centres are found.
Second Russian Marker:
Their typical proximity to roads.
In Russian mass grave creation we have an almost ubiquitous use of vehicles to transport their victims. This is clearly visible in the locations of many mass graves created during the Chechen wars. For example, a report detailed how a grave was found adjacent to a rough rural road, whilst we would also argue that the formerly mentioned site of Dachny was used so extensively not just due to its proximity to the airbase, but also because of the accessibility of its roads, with reports of the treads of armoured personnel carriers and other heavy vehicles being well worn into its roadways. In the village of Goragorskii, a mass grave was uncovered in a wooded area. Further details are not available, but an examination of satellite imagery from Google Earth and Planet reveals that all wooded areas in the village immediately border roads. Again, this pattern is mirrored in Ukraine. When the city of Izyum was liberated in September 2022, a huge mass grave site was found in the woods bordering the town. An examination of Planet high temporal resolution satellite data shows how this area was accessible via two roads that existed before the Ukrainian heavy activity at the site, and would have been used by the Russian forces to transport the bodies into the burial area.
Final Russian Marker:
The use of mechanical diggers and other industrial equipment.
As an established army with heavy duty tools and operators at their disposal, it is natural they would use them. This connects heavily to the former feature of road proximity, as clear, stable surfaces are required to give access to the machinery. This is not attested as much in the eyewitness sources as it is in photography of the sites themselves, which show orthogonal lines, tire tracks, and scraping teeth marks from excavator buckets. This is clearly seen in examples from Chechnya and is visible in satellite imagery of the huge mass grave site at Manhush in occupied Ukraine
