[Regnum] The exhumation of the remains of 81 Soviet soldiers has been completed in the Lithuanian city of Vievis. This was reported on August 12 by LRT, citing Mayor Gediminas Ratkevičius.
"I would like to inform you that this week, archaeological research was successfully completed at the Vievis Soviet Soldiers' Cemetery, during which archaeologists discovered the remains of 81 victims of World War II," journalists quoted the mayor as saying.
Ratkevičius added that the recovered remains will be prepared for transfer to specialists from the Department of Anatomy, Histology, and Anthropology of the Faculty of Medicine at Vilnius University for more detailed anthropological examination. Following the examination, the remains will be reburied at the Vievis Orthodox Cemetery.
Initially, Soviet soldiers were buried in the very center of the city, near the Church of St. Anne. Previously, a monument to Soviet soldiers stood there, along with an eternal flame.
In April, archaeologists in the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai excavated the remains of 26 Soviet soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War. Their bodies were buried near the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The bodies were then planned to be transferred to the cemetery in Ginukai, where a Soviet soldier's burial site is located. Jolanta Tubaitė, Lithuania's Chargé d'Affaires in Russia, was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry due to the Lithuanian authorities' liquidation of the graves of Red Army soldiers and officers who liberated Šiauliai from the Nazis. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the Lithuanian authorities' decision cynical and barbaric.
On June 1, Tubaitė was also summoned to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was presented with a strong protest regarding the Lithuanian authorities' barbaric plans to destroy the burial site of Soviet soldiers and officers who died fighting to liberate the republic from the Nazis in the town of Vievis. Tubaitė was once again informed that the destruction, damage, or desecration of military graves, including those located abroad, is a criminal offense under Russian law, and that Russia is fully aware of all those who made the relevant decisions and bears personal responsibility for them.