The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter has asked experts what the crematoria seen on the Ukrainian front are for.
11.4. 11:11 • Updated April 11. 12:22
In the early days of the war in Ukraine, information circulated that Russian troops were carrying mobile crematoria.
According to human rights organizations and pro-Ukrainian media, for example, this was seen as possible evidence that the Russian military was using crematoria to cover up human rights abuses in its occupied territories.
In Ukraine moved news (switch to another service), according to which fighters from the Russian – backed “People ‘s Republics” had been assembled into “cleaning brigades” tasked with assembling the bodies of civilians tortured by the Russians and cremating them to cover up traces. This has not been confirmed by objective sources, and Twitter, for example, classifies the relevant messages as disinfection.
“Included for practical reasons”
According to experts, it is clear that Russian troops are carrying crematoria. The Russians already used them during the conquest of Crimea.
The crematoria are, as it were, large cylinders mounted on the platform of a truck, where the dead are cremated.
Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University Magnus Öberg thinks the Russians have crematoria for practical reasons.
– They have had crematoria in the past to deal with their own [kuolleita] their soldiers. The reason is apparently so brutal that ash is easier to handle than bodies that should be kept chilled, he says.
Öberg has not seen crematoria used for cremation of civilians anywhere during the war.
– It doesn’t seem special when you think about the war crimes that have come to light. At the same time they [venäläiset] they don’t seem to cover anything up, they leave their bodies open in the streets. There are mass graves, but they have made little effort to clean up their tracks.
According to Öberg, the Russians do not have the capacity to incinerate their victims. Burial in mass graves is faster, he guesses.
Local, small-scale use possible
Worked in the Swedish Defense Forces and processed intelligence Peter Larsson has already received information about mobile crematoria during the conquest of Crimea.
He also does not believe that the Russians could use crematoria on a large scale. On a small scale, they could be used, for example, to destroy evidence.
– […] Then it must also be said that it is a good tool if you really want to delete the information that someone has been in a certain place.
However, there has been no evidence that the Russians have used crematoria to cover up war crimes, for example.