BERLIN. Nov 16 (Interfax) - The Russian Defense Ministry is planning to exhume the remains of German soldiers on the Russian islands in the Gulf of Finland in 2016 for their subsequent reburial near St. Petersburg.
"In reply to the relevant request we have received from the German People's Union, regarding care for the soldiers' graves, we are considering a possibility of having the remains of German military servicemen on the Bolshoy Tyuters and Gogland islands exhumed by forces of the 90th Separate Special Search Battalion of the Defense Ministry in as early as 2016. We are also planning exhumation work at the graves of German soldiers in areas belonging to our Defense Ministry (training areas and military bases)," Vladimir Popov, head of the ministry's department for perpetuating the memory of fallen soldiers, told Russian journalists on Sunday.
Popov is leading a delegation of Russian defense officials attending the events on the occasion of the National Day of Mourning in Germany.
He said the exhumed remains of German soldiers will be re-buried in 2016 by the German People's Union at a collective German cemetery in the village of Sologubovka in the Leningradskaya region. According to the German People's Union, in total there are about 120 remains of German military servicemen on the Russian islands of Bolshoy Tyuters and Gogland in the Gulf of Finland.