More on NYTimes story.
“Imagery Shows How a Cemetery for Russian Mercenaries Is Expanding”
“Recent satellite imagery and video footage offer a rare look at combat fatalities sustained by the Wagner mercenary group in Ukraine.”
“A cemetery used by the notorious Russian mercenary group Wagner has grown rapidly in size over the past several months, according to interviews and an analysis by The New York Times of satellite imagery and video footage. The expanded burial ground is rare visual evidence that shows the toll the invasion of Ukraine is taking on Wagner, especially its rank-and-file soldiers.
The expansion coincides with a bloody offensive by Russian soldiers and mercenaries to gain ground in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. government says that Wagner’s battlefield casualties are in the thousands and that 90 percent of them are inmates who were recruited to fight in exchange for being released from prison, assuming they survived.
A satellite image captured on Jan. 24 shows about 170 burial plots in an area of the cemetery known to hold Wagner fighters, a number that has increased to nearly seven times that seen on satellite imagery just two months ago.”
“Russia Orders Closure of Country’s Oldest Human Rights Group”
“A Russian court on Wednesday ordered the closure of the Moscow Helsinki Group, the country’s oldest human rights organization, amid an accelerating crackdown on the remnants of civil society since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The group was founded in 1976 at the height of the Cold War by Soviet dissidents and rights activists to monitor compliance with the Helsinki Accords, a pact intended to promote detente between East and West. “