Lithuania to Exhume Soviet Soldiers Who Died During World War II

Lithuania is preparing to exhume Soviet soldiers who died during World War II

The country's Ministry of Culture has prepared a regulation on the relocation of burials of Soviet soldiers to cemeteries and is conducting interdepartmental coordination of the document. This was reported by the advisor to the Minister of Culture, Ramunė Vaičiulytė, informs BELTA with reference to the RuBaltic portal.

"The ministry has prepared the relevant regulation and sent it for interdepartmental coordination, after which the document will be submitted to the government for approval," she stated.

The regulation was prepared at the request of the Šiauliai city hall, which intends to move the graves of Soviet World War II soldiers from the center, from the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, to a regular cemetery.

Šiauliai Mayor Artūras Visockas reminded that the previous Lithuanian government promised to prepare the procedure almost a year ago. "Why is the cemetery of Soviet military personnel still in the center of Šiauliai? Next to the cathedral church and the city hall," the head of the city wrote on social media. According to him, the resolution defining the procedure for exhuming burials in Lithuania could be prepared within a month, but politicians are delaying this work.

The Šiauliai city hall claims that over 80% of the city's residents who participated in a public opinion poll approved the relocation of the remains of 52 Soviet soldiers from the center.

As Mayor Artūras Visockas previously stated, some burials of Soviet World War II soldiers were allegedly "tendenciously and deliberately arranged in representative places of settlements with the aim of instilling a sense of gratitude and moral obligation towards the soldiers of the Soviet army and for its glorification."

In August last year, the special commission on de-Sovietization of Lithuania decided that the remains of Soviet soldiers buried in city and town squares should be exhumed and reburied.

The burial site of military personnel in the center of Šiauliai is included in the Register of Cultural Values of Lithuania. It states that the burial includes the remains of 52 Soviet soldiers who died in World War II.