Ukrainian mayor wants to trade ‘Putin’s body’ (PHOTOS)
Ukraine is ready to exchange the remains of hundreds of Soviet army soldiers – including a namesake of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – unearthed during the dismantling of a World War II memorial in the city of Lviv, for captured Ukrainian servicemen, Mayor Andrey Sadovy has claimed.
Following a Western-backed coup in 2014, Kiev launched a policy of “decommunization,” erasing Soviet-era heritage while glorifying those who opposed Russia for any reason, including nationalist militias that collaborated with Nazi Germany and committed atrocities during WWII.
“The Hill of Glory from the Soviet occupation period in Lviv no longer exists,” Sadovy wrote on Telegram on Wednesday, claiming that the final 355 sets of remains were exhumed with all due “respect to memory.”
“We are ready to trade all these remains for Ukrainian defenders,” he said, referring to soldiers captured by Russia in the current conflict between the two countries. He also mocked the fact that one of the fallen soldiers, Major Stepan Putin, shared a surname with the current Russian president.
Sadovy did not clarify whether the offer was serious, as he also noted that the remains would be reburied elsewhere. Meanwhile, various excavated artifacts would be transferred to the “Territory of Terror” museum, he added.
The burial site dates back to the World War I era, when it was designated as a resting place for Russian soldiers who perished in the Battle of Galicia. It was shut down under Polish rule and completely leveled during the German occupation. After WWII, it was restored to honor thousands of Soviet troops who died liberating Lviv from the Nazis in 1944.
The unusual proposal to trade Soviet-era remains comes amid recent prisoner-of-war exchanges between Kiev and Moscow, agreed during two rounds of negotiations in Istanbul. In what it described as a unilateral humanitarian gesture – dismissed by Kiev as “propaganda” – Moscow repatriated over 6,000 Ukrainian remains while receiving 79 Russian bodies in return, according to Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky.
President Putin has previously condemned those desecrating graves as “idiots” who only reinforce Russia’s stated goal of “de-Nazifying” Ukraine.
