Graves Of Men Who Likely Served As Russia's Wagner Group Mercenaries Found In Ukraine's Luhansk

Forty-two fresh graves of people, who may have died while working as mercenaries in the notorious Russian Wagner Group, were found near the occupied city of Luhansk in Ukraine.

The mass burial site was discovered earlier this month in a local cemetery near the village of Kirovka in Luhansk, according to the Russian BBC. Locals told the media none of those buried in the graves were known to them.

"We thought, all of a sudden, these people are lying here, and their relatives don't even know about it. So they photographed all the graves, began to distribute them among the missing persons search groups. And now nine people have answered me. All of them did not even know that their relatives died. They were looking for them, waiting for news," one of the women who discovered the burial told the BBC.

The BBC managed to obtain information regarding 37 men by matching them with the inscriptions nearby. Of the deceased, 35 were Russian, one was a citizen of Belarus, and one was born in Uzbekistan, Pravda reported.

On the websites of Russian courts' published verdicts, 20 of the names from the gravesite were the same as those who were supposed to be serving their sentences in prison.

This burial site is the third one, where dozens of graves of convicts who fought in Ukraine as part of the Wagner private military company (PMC) have been found.

In December, 47 graves of convicts were found in the village of Bakinskaya, Krasnodar Krai. By the end of January, the number of graves increased sixfold.

"My son and I were constantly in touch. Both in the colony, and then later. He called me in early September from Lugansk. He said that he had signed a contract with Wagner PMC since Sept. 1, and asked for my details so that I could receive his salary," the mother of one of the prisoners told the BBC.

Last year, the Wagner Group enlisted Russian prisoners and sent them to participate in the invasion of Ukraine.

White House National Security Council adviser John Kirby said last December that of the Wagner Group's 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, about 40,000 are convicts recruited from Russian prisons.