Private understanding ensures tending of British military graves in Russia and Crimea, and Soviet graves in UKIn graves at Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok, in Russia, lie the bodies of 663 British military personnel. Most of the dead lost their lives in the period just after the first world war, when allied troops were sent to support rightwing White forces in the Russian civil war against the Bolsheviks, while 41 are casualties from the second world war Arctic convoys.Their resting places have been tended over decades by the Russian military and by private contractors, paid by the UK’s Commonwealth War Graves Commission. But after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, economic sanctions meant Britain could no longer pay for the graves to be maintained. Continue reading...
Despite strained UK-Russia relations, a private understanding ensures the continued maintenance of British war graves in Russia and Crimea, and Soviet graves in the UK. While economic sanctions have disrupted formal payments, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission believes Russians are still tending to British graves, as they continue to maintain Soviet graves. However, access to graves in Crimea is restricted, and the lack of a formal treaty highlights the difficult relationship between the two nations.
