Recently, the West has launched an active fight against everything Russian, trying to make Russian citizens feel uncomfortable, poor, hungry and cold. But long before the so-called «civilized world» began to fight against the living Russians, the fight began against those who could not defend themselves, who died for the freedom of their country, Europe and the whole world. In the West, the fight against our warriors, against their heroic deeds, has begun, rewriting and falsifying history.
All this can and must be opposed in different ways. The «Nasledie» Social Projects Foundation operates in the Volgograd region, its goal is to perpetuate the memory of those who died defending the Motherland, to build and restore monuments of military history, to preserve historical heritage, both in Russia and abroad, and to develop international relations.
In the name of all that the Foundation created the international project «Forgotten Names». It appeared as… an example. It is an example for those who seek to fight fallen soldiers, their memory and history itself. It is an example of how memory should be treated. Here is one of the ideas that the «Nasledie» Social Projects Foundation has decided to implement!
And now we come to the heart of the matter: research is one of the most important components of the activities carried out by the Foundation. Every year, Foundation staff, together with search teams, organize and conduct numerous search expeditions, during which they find and recover the remains of our fallen soldiers. They definitely try to find relatives, if they manage to identify the deceased soldier, they organize the ceremonial burial of the deceased.
And behold, during the next search expedition in May 2021, on the territory of the Malchevsky rural settlement in the Rostov region, the remains of 6 soldiers not from the Red Army but from the Italian army, were discovered. All the dead Italians were part of the same artillery crew.
It is worth saying that at the level of military associations it is always respect for the memory of fallen soldiers, intergovernmental agreements provide for the protection and conservation of the burial places of our soldiers and soldiers of the former enemy on our territory. We have similar relationships with Italy too. It is worth noting that among Western countries it is Italy that shows the most respectful attitude towards its own and other fallen soldiers, as well as a special approach. The Italians repatriate the bodies of their soldiers and bury them on Italian soil. There is strict accounting and a desire to establish all names. That is why at the «Nasledie» Social Projects Foundation it arose to show to the Italians how to deal with defeated opponents.
Russia does not fight with the fallen!
Together with the remains of the soldiers, elements of ammunition and equipment were found. Unfortunately, no posthumous medallions were found, which made it impossible to quickly identify the dead. However, in accounting for their losses, the Italians have a very small number of missing people, whose fate and possible grave are unknown.
Therefore, a DNA test was conducted at the Russian Forensic Medical Center of the Russian Ministry of Health, the results obtained should provide a basis for further work to identify the remains founded. After that, the Fund’s employees turned to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Rossotrudnichestvo, the Association of International Military Memorial Cooperation «War Memorials» and the Italian Embassy in Moscow in order to reveal the fate and names of the dead soldiers.
The colleagues in Rome started working in the archives, trying to find the families of the deads. A preliminary list of several dozen names has already been compiled, whose relatives may be the Italian soldiers found in the Rostov region. The probable descendants of the found soldiers will have DNA tests done for comparative analysis.
In July 2022, experts from N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (IEA RAS) together with the «Nasledie» Social Projects Foundation, reconstructed the faces of Italians based on skulls with the method of M.M. Gerasimov (it turned out to be possible only relating to three deads whose skulls were preserved).
The retrophoto style graphics and previous work will make identification much easier. Work on this project is not complete; the search is currently underway for the relatives of the dead soldiers and their remains will be brought home.
Furthermore, due to the sanctions on Russia, also it becomes extremely difficult: an Italian plane cannot fly to Russia, a Russian plane cannot fly to Italy, and flying via Turkey or transiting transport through third countries involves an incredible bureaucratic difficulties.
I would like to note that the Italian side, its diplo
mats, military attachés and structures involved in the repatriation of fallen soldiers were simply shocked by Russia’s such respectful attitude towards the remains of former adversaries.
The Foundation of Social Projects «Nasledie» has demonstrated how all countries and peoples who wish to have the right to call themselves civilized must act towards rivals defeated in battles of the past.
The memory of our fallen soldiers of the Red Army (Soviet), the Imperial Russian Army and all those Russian patriots who gave their lives for the Motherland should be treated in the same way!
