FALSE: In Lviv, authorities mock the memory of ancestors by destroying the remains of Red Army soldiers at the “Hill of Glory”

Russian sources are quoting the words of Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova, claiming that the exhumation of Soviet soldiers’ remains is a cynical mockery of the memory of their own ancestors. This was her response to the exhumation of Red Army soldiers’ remains in Lviv at the “Hill of Glory.” 

However, this is false. In Lviv, the remains of Red Army soldiers are not being destroyed, but exhumed for subsequent reburial.

On April 23, 2025, exhumation began at the “Hill of Glory” for the purpose of reburial of the bodies, not the destruction of “their own ancestors.” Yevhen Boiko, Chief of Staff of the Executive Committee of Lviv City Council, stated that there are over 220 individual burials, 4 mass graves of Red Army soldiers and Soviet partisans, and likely the graves of NKVD agents Nikolai Kuznetsov and Major Stepan Putin. “All of these graves will be treated equally, with the same exhumation protocol and the same reburial principle. All work is being conducted in accordance with permits obtained from the state, from the Ministry of Culture”, Boiko said.

The exhumation is being carried out by specialists from the Memorial and Search Center “Dolya”. The center’s head indicated that anthropologists, forensic experts, and law enforcement officers will also be involved in the process. During the work, the territory is guarded by LKP “Municipal Guard”. Video surveillance has also been installed on the premises.

As of May 8, 50 graves had been exhumed and transferred to the Holosko cemetery. The rest of the discovered remains will also be reburied there. That is, no one is “mocking the memory” of ancestors — specialists are following all necessary procedures. Moreover, the reburial is being carried out in accordance with the law on decommunization, which provides for the cleansing of public spaces from totalitarian regime symbols. Therefore, even burials that glorify the Soviet army fall under this regulation.

According to Yevhen Boiko, the Soviet authorities did not properly honor the memory of soldiers who died during World War II, as discrepancies were found in the number and positioning of bodies in the graves. In one coffin, two bodies were found instead of one, and one of the bodies, dressed in a Soviet colonel’s uniform, was lying face down. “It’s hard to explain this by a lack of basic math or geometry knowledge among the communists. This is something more than negligence: it looks like a deliberate disregard by the Bolsheviks for the memory of those who gave their lives for their regime,” the official wrote in a blog for Zaxid.net.

Earlier, we debunked the fake that a mass grave of over 1,500 Soviet soldiers had been destroyed in Lviv.