Satellite pictures reveal rapidly expanding cemetery of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group

Satellite images of an area near a village in Russia show a rapidly expanding cemetery where many of those killed fighting for the Wagner Group — a Russian private mercenary organization heavily involved in the war in Ukraine — are buried. 

Pictures of rows of fresh graves near the village of Bakinskaya in the Krasnodar region first started emerging on social media in December. And on Jan. 2, Russian State News Agency RIA Novosti showed Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin visiting the site and laying a wreath on one of the graves. 

“Here we bury fighters who indicated in their will that they want to be buried here,” Prigozhin explained, according to RIA. “Or orphans and those whose bodies, for some reason, relatives do not want to take.”

Satellite pictures taken by on Nov. 24, 2022, show three rows of graves on a new plot. When Prigozhin visited in early January, he told RIA Novosti that 93 graves had been dug. Another Maxar satellite picture taken on Jan. 24 shows the plot already virtually full, with 14 additional rows. 

According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Bakinskaya cemetery seen in satellite pictures, as well as a nearby secondary location in the nearby town of Goryachy Klyuch, may hold around 1,000 dead Wagner soldiers.

Local activists reported the mercenary group began using the Bakinskaya cemetery after it ran out of space at a Wagner-affiliated chapel in Goryachy Klyuch.

“The majority of the Wagner Group personnel buried at these sites were reportedly prisoners, a result of the Wagner Group‘s overwhelming reliance on prison recruitment and its operational use of these personnel in costly assaults,” the ISW said in its analysis on Friday.

“The high number of casualties is likely constraining the Wagner Group’s ability to continue offensive operations at a high pace and will likely prompt further prison recruitment efforts,” it added.

More on Wagner’s role in Ukraine: Wagner fighters have been locked in a long battle of attrition with Ukrainian forces as they’ve taken the town of Soledar and are now engaged in the assault on Bakhmut and surrounding villages. Ukrainian officials say Wagner has sent waves of infantry toward their positions and have suffered heavy losses in the process.

The high number of casualties earned the area the nickname of “meat grinder,” and the rapidly expanding graveyard in Bakinskaya illustrates the high death toll. 

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

The US Treasury Department on Thursday designated Wagner a significant transnational criminal organization and imposed a slew of sanctions on a transnational network that supports it.

A senior official for the European Union on Friday called for the creation of a “Free Radio Russia” project to enable independent Russian journalists to report without censorship from the Kremlin. 

“I want to launch a Radio Free Russia project,” said EU Commission Vice President Vera Jourová, similar to the idea of Radio Free Europe or Voice of America, founded to counter propaganda and transmit uncensored news and information during the Cold War and World War II respectively.  

It would not mean creating a brand-new radio station, she said during a speech in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, rather a platform “to support those who are doing a lot already, help them to create economy of scale and fill the gaps so they can produce more content and distribute it more widely without any editorial interference.”

Many independent journalists have been expelled from Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in wake of its censorship, and so a number of news outlets such as Novaya Gazeta now operate in the EU, providing a “unique opportunity,” she said. 

The commissioner reflected on her childhood in Soviet-era Czech Republic to “reject” the argument that “all Russians” support Moscow’s government, urging Europe not to “give up on the Russian society […] regardless of how few or how many want to hear the real news, not Kremlin propaganda.”  

Some background: The Russian government adopted a law criminalizing the dissemination of what it calls “deliberately false” information about the Russian armed forces in early March, just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The maximum penalty under the law is 15 years in prison.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday that it has ordered Latvian Ambassador to Moscow Maris Riekstins to leave Russia within two weeks in a tit-for-tat move.

“Ambassador of Latvia M. Riekstins was ordered to leave the Russian Federation within two weeks,” according to a statement from the ministry. 

Earlier this week, Latvia expelled Russia’s ambassador in Riga, citing solidarity with Estonia. 

Moscow has blamed Riga for the deterioration of bilateral relations between the two countries. 

“It is emphasized that the provocative démarche of the Latvian authorities to lower the level of diplomatic relations will have consequences,” according to the statement.

Two of the 70 missiles fired by Russia toward Ukraine on Thursday were Kinzhal-type hypersonic missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force said, calling on the West to provide them with advance air defense systems that are capable of shooting these down.

“We need Patriot and SAMP/T systems to be able to (intercept these missiles),” Ukrainian Air Force Command spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said during a briefing.

SAMP/T systems are used for air defense primarily in Europe.

The United States has said it will send Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, but the systems do not appear to be operational in the country yet. Ukrainian troops were set to begin training on the Patriot system this month at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where the US conducts its own training on operating and maintaining the advanced air defense system.

France and Italy are finalizing an agreement to send SAMP/T systems to Ukraine, with an agreement expected in the coming weeks. 

A court in Spain ordered prison on remand for a Spanish man suspected of sending letter bombs late last year to Spain’s prime minister and the US and Ukrainian embassies in Madrid. The judge said Friday that the man’s intention was to disturb public peace in a way to create pressure for Spain to suppress its support to Ukraine.  

The six letter bombs, also “aimed to oblige” Spain “to drop its support shown for Ukraine against the Russian aggression,” investigating magistrate Jose Luis Calama wrote in the ruling, which the court sent to CNN and other media.   

The suspect, arrested on Wednesday at his home in northern Spain, is 74-year-old Pompeyo Gonzalez Pascual. He used Russian instant messaging apps like VK and the Swiss encrypted end-to-end email system, and is considered a flight risk, the judge added in the ruling.   

More on the suspect: CNN reported last Monday that US officials believe that Russian intelligence officers directed a Russian White supremacist group to carry out a letter-bombing campaign that rocked Spain late last year, citing current and former US officials.   

The suspect consulted Russian news websites, such as Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as other sites focused on weapons and chemicals, the judge wrote.   

A Spanish interior ministry statement last Wednesday said that although “it’s presumed that the suspect made and sent the explosive devices on his own, the police don’t rule out the participation or influence of other people in these events.”   

Spain’s aid to Ukraine: Spain has provided humanitarian and military support to Ukraine since the Russian invasion. More recently, Spain said it was willing to provide Ukraine with its Leopard tanks, but in coordination with the allies.

Five Russian men who have fled Russia after the government’s military mobilization order last September have been stranded at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport for months after authorities refused to accept them.

Three of the men arrived at the airport last October and two in November, according to their lawyer Lee Jong-chan. But since their applications for refugee status were denied by the South Korean Justice Ministry, they’ve been at the airport’s departure lounge for months waiting for a ruling on their appeal, according to Lee.

A news release issued last month by a South Korean human rights advocacy group called on the government to accept the men’s applications on grounds the men refuse to become a “tool of murder” and if they return home, “it is highly likely for them to be detained or forcibly drafted.”

South Korea’s Ministry of Justice has dismissed their applications as “not being worthy of evaluation,” on the ground that a refusal of conscription was not a reason for refugee recognition,” according to Lee, who has reviewed the document from the ministry.

Lee argues that the men’s refusal to serve in the military “should be recognized as a political reason considering the current situation that the war [in Ukraine] is condemned by international law.” 

“[The men] are political refugees who face persecution,” the news release from the activist group said, adding, “Those who apply for refugee status upon escaping political and religious persecution from their home countries have rights to protection under international law. … As a developed, democratic state that guarantees human rights, [South] Korea has been inconspicuously rejecting refugees who have objected to war.”  

The men have appealed the decision, and three of them will face their first court ruling on Jan. 31, during which the court will decide whether or not their case is “worthy of evaluation,” according to Lee. If the court rules in their favor, the Justice Ministry will then have to review their applications for refugee status. 

South Korea has mandatory military service and takes draft evasion seriously.

John Kirby, a White House national security spokesperson, told CNN Friday the newly announced tranche of Abrams tanks announced by the US as part of this week’s aid to Ukraine “will take many months before they can get on the ground.”

Despite this timeline, Kirby said the Biden administration is “not going to waste time” in providing training and shoring up supply chains to ensure Ukrainian forces are best equipped to use them when they eventually arrive in Ukraine.

Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, however, Kirby declined to say if he believes they’ll arrive by the end of 2023.

“I don’t want to get too specific, because we’re still working the plans out, but it’ll be many months,” Kirby told Kaitlan, but that in the meantime, a shipment of Leopard tanks courtesy of Germany will arrive on the ground in Ukraine “in short order.”

Kirby also wouldn’t say whether US President Joe Biden is considering a trip to the region to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, but told CNN Biden is “in close contact with President Zelensky — they speak quite frequently, quite often.”

“I think that, you know, the President would certainly, at whatever appropriate time, would be willing to do [travel] to Ukraine. But we’re not at that point right now,” he said.

Germany’s defense ministry on Friday confirmed Ukrainian soldiers have arrived in the country for training on the Marder infantry fighting vehicles Berlin has agreed to provide to the war-torn nation. 

“Ukrainian soldiers have arrived in Germany for training on the Marder infantry fighting vehicle,” a spokesperson from the country’s defense ministry told reporters at a press briefing.  

Earlier this month, Germany said it would provide Ukraine with 40 of the Marder vehicles and an additional Patriot anti-aircraft missile battery.   

Germany’s defense ministry told CNN Friday that the training would take place in Munster, Lower Saxony, and is expected to be completed by the end of March.  

The Marder is an infantry fighting vehicle used by the German military since the early 1970’s but continuously upgraded. While the German military is in the process of phasing the vehicle out, hundreds are still in service.   

An infantry fighting vehicle is a heavily armed armored vehicle used to move soldiers around the battlefield. It’s usually deployed together with main battle tanks.  

On Wednesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the additional delivery of 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks to Ukraine. Training for Ukrainian soldiers on how to use the advanced battle tanks is set to begin “soon” in Germany, according to the defense ministry.  

Ukraine’s eastern front line is under heavily shelling, with the town of Vuhledar facing “permanent” assault, the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Telegram Friday morning.  

Two people died over the past 24 hours in what Kyrylenko described as the “permanent shelling of Vuhledar.” 

He also reported two instances of “massive artillery shelling of Avdiivka overnight.”

Russian forces continued to shell towns in the east during the day on Friday, Kyrylenko said in a later post. The town of Chasiv Yar, to the west of Bakhmut, had been shelled for over an hour and a half on Friday morning, leaving two people dead and five wounded, and damaging “around ten houses.” 

A spokesperson for Ukraine’s military told one broadcast outlet that Russia was “constantly” trying to advance in the east, using “a barrage of personnel” to try and break through Ukrainian defenses. 

“The Russians are trying to break through our defenses, ignoring enormous losses of their own. It used to be a barrage of fire, now it is barrage of personnel,” Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s armed forces in the east, told UATV on Friday.

“They are constantly assaulting, trying to move forward,” he said. “Their key weapon now is manpower. In Bakhmut, those are the Wagner PMC but not exclusively… In Vuhledar, the key assault forces are marines and infantry units, along with conscripts.”