‘The only thing still working’: Russia and UK agreement to tend war graves transcends bitter international relations
www.theguardian.com
Sun, 23 Mar 2025 14:00:20 +0200

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 UKs Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
But after Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine, economic sanctions meant Britain could no longer pay for the graves to be maintained.
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