Slovak Authorities Level Cemetery Containing Graves of Russian WWI Soldiers With Bulldozer

The escalation of the Ukraine crisis has accelerated a decades-long push by authorities in some Eastern European countries to raze monuments and war memorials dedicated to the Soviet troops who died liberating Eastern Europe from the Nazis. Reports of state-sanctioned attacks against Russian World War I memorials have been rarer, until now.

A cemetery in the village of Ladomirov, Slovakia containing the final resting places of Imperial Russian Army soldiers who died during the First World War has been leveled by a bulldozer, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Bratislava has told Sputnik.

The gruesome discovery was made during a working trip by Ambassador Igor Bratchikov to eastern Slovakia on Tuesday. Locals told the diplomat that the cemetery had been "creatively altered" sometime in July at the direction of the village’s mayor.

The cemetery in Ladomirov was opened in September 2014 following costly restoration work sponsored by the Russian Embassy.

A photo from 2014 shows concrete fencing and gravel work around the perimeter of the graves, but photos taken this year show these elements to no longer be present. Furthermore, the bronzed Russian Orthodox prayer booth building with a traditional onion-shaped dome appears to have had the bronze removed and painted black.

“The Embassy strongly condemns this sacrilegious step, which is a criminal offense in most civilized countries, and calls on the Slovak side to strictly adhere to the provisions of the intergovernmental agreement of 1995 on the burial places of fallen military personnel and civilian victims of war. A corresponding note has been sent to the Slovak Foreign Ministry,” Embassy spokesman Vitaly Zhitnyuk said.

The desecration of the cemetery is the latest instance of state-sponsored vandalism targeting war memorials dedicated to fallen Soviet and Russian soldiers. In recent months, authorities and activists in the Baltic countries, Poland, and other Eastern European nations have taken advantage of the escalating crisis in Ukraine to whip up anti-Russian sentiments and to topple, dismantle, or raze dozens of WWII monuments and memorials, accelerating efforts which began back in the early 1990s.

In March, vandals splattered yellow and blue paint on the walls and staircases of a cemetery and memorial dedicated to fallen Soviet soldiers in Bratislava, sparking outrage from Ambassador Bratchikov.

Over a million Red Army troops perished during the 1944-1945 operations to free Eastern Europe from fascism during World War II, nearly 140,000 of them in Czechoslovakia. More than 2.2 million troops of the Imperial Russian Army also perished in fighting against German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman forces on the eastern and southern fronts of the First World War. The latter conflict ultimately led to the Russian Revolution, and resulted in the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, giving Czechoslovakia its statehood. The country broke up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1992.