The cemetery is partially destroyed, rockets fell on it, cluster munitions fell. One of the rockets slammed into graves. Partially destroyed are plaques, which are a reminder of Polish soldiers – said volunteer and documentary filmmaker Mateusz Lachowski on TVN24. – Just yesterday there was shooting there – he stated. And he stressed that such actions “is something unimaginable”. The cemetery rests, among others, Polish officers murdered by the NKVD.
I was in Kharkiv at the cemetery for the victims of totalitarianism (…). It was a bit risky – reported volunteer and documentary filmmaker Mateusz Lachowski on TVN24.
The trees are cut down, there are no military purposes there. It is hard for me to imagine that it was not done on purpose. And he conveyed that the cemetery as a result of the Russian attack is partially destroyed.
Just yesterday, mortars were fired there. Rockets fell on the cemetery, cluster munitions fell. One of the rockets penetrated the graves. Partially destroyed are the plaques, which are mementos of Polish soldiers. It is a depressing sight. It’s a total barbarism to shoot to cemeteries, to places of memory, it’s something unimaginable – he said.
Cemetery of victims of totalitarianism targeted
The cemetery of Victims of Totalitarianism in Kharkiv-Piatichatky has been shelled by Russian troops before. In late March, a cluster bomb also fell on the graves. Also then some of the graves and plaques with the names of Polish Army officers were destroyed.
There are traces of explosions in the cemetery, the bullets hit – symbolically – the plaques with the names of Polish officers murdered by the NKVD,” PAP journalist Andrzej Lange reported on March 23. – There are shrapnel marks on the crosses, and we can see bomb craters,” he added.
The Cemetery of Victims of Totalitarianism in Kharkiv-Piatichaty was built in 1999-2000. It is a burial place for the victims of Stalin’s purges of 1937-38, as well as Polish Army officers shot during the Katyn massacre in 1940.
In a forest near Kharkiv – near the NKVD sanatorium – in 1940 the bodies of Polish officers, who had been murdered in the basement of the NKVD building in Kharkiv, were buried in trucks. The first transport set off from Starobelsk to Kharkov on the night of 5/6 April 1940.
Kharkiv under constant fire. A Russian convoy is approaching
Kharkiv itself, the second most populous city in Ukraine, has been regularly shelled and destroyed by the Russians since the beginning of the war. As previously reported by the mayor of this city, Ihor Terekhov, the Russians have destroyed 1,716 residential buildings in the city since the beginning of the aggression.
Source: TVN24, Onet
