The mayor of Mariupol has informed the Ukrainian government that mobile crematoria are present in his city. These large vehicles made an appearance almost immediately after the furor regarding Russian atrocities in Bucha. The Ukrainian government is calling this “the new Auschwitz”.
It may well be just that.
To clarify:
- The mayor’s information was first published on April 6. It may have taken a day or so for the information to be processed and released. In that time, the crematoria may have done a lot of work.
- Mobile crematoria are designed to work on a battlefield, particularly after heavy fighting and large numbers of deaths.
- These large vehicles are capable of processing a lot of bodies. It’s unknown how many people have been cremated.
- Information on Twitter indicates that the mayor believes tens of thousands of people have died in Mariupol.
- Sadly, that figure could be quite accurate. Weeks of heavy bombardment could have killed very large numbers of people.
- So could weeks of Russian occupation, if Bucha is any indication.
- Russian denials of executions are futile. People don’t tie their hands behind their backs and then shoot themselves in the head.
- If this is standard practice, (this type of execution has a long lineage in Russian history since 1917), several weeks of such practices may well have been in progress.
- Thousands of people could well have died across Ukraine in those weeks.
Where credibility meets bullets
To be considered here:
- A welcome “army of liberation” brings a lot of mobile crematoria on standby with it?
- A Russian army that has no fuel for its vehicles has fuel for mobile crematoria?
- There just happens to be a fleet of mobile crematoria handy to Mariupol?
- An army that can’t even get organized enough to feed its own troops can manage mass cremations?
- Can mobile crematoria be used to cover up your own vast numbers of casualties?
…Then there’s the less innocent view of the issues
Disgusting as all this is so far, there’s a much nastier possibility. It’s not at all uncommon for intelligence agencies to make lists of people for “removal”. The Soviets did so routinely. Separatists could have (and would have) provided the Russians with lists of people who were anti-Russian.
What if planned liquidations also include planned coverups of evidence? What if this was premeditated, and the mobile crematoria have simply been also used for mass cremations of civilians as well?
Russian troops all too clearly don’t know how to act like real soldiers. Western troops can refuse to obey illegal orders. The Russians couldn’t even argue with orders to kill people.
The total lack of discipline of the Russian troops in Ukraine is well-known. They’re useless in combat; terrorizing civilians is also well known to be about all they do in occupied areas. They’re basically street gangs in uniform. It’d be like getting invaded by MS13. Therefore people get killed, probably a lot of them.
They’re also acting guilty, exactly like criminals. There are probably two levels to the atrocities; “unofficial” killings and “official” killings ordered by officers. That complicates punishment and drastically increases the range of issues to bring them to justice.
The crimes are not in doubt. It’s getting the facts that’s the issue. One of the classic issues with “missing witnesses” to war is that a lot of people do go missing, usually all at the same time. The only available witnesses are the surviving troops. These troops are usually scared of retaliation if they give evidence. Nuremberg all over again, in fact.
So if covering up evidence is obvious, getting evidence isn’t going to be easy. The evidence is probably still there though. Some things like teeth and bones don’t burn well. DNA can also be recovered from fully incinerated burns victims, although crematoria reach higher temperatures.
If you can identify the people, you can identify where they were, and when. Then it’s a question of which Russian units were in the area. Under international law, unit commanders are definitely liable for war crimes; individual soldiers can also be prosecuted.
These atrocities are probably ongoing, but Ukraine can do something about them.
The Russians haven’t yet left Ukraine. They hold a lot of small villages and some larger residential areas. It’s more than likely that mobile crematoria are at work elsewhere.
Ironically, there are some good combat and legal options for Ukraine. These large vehicles stick out. They’d be visible by satellite. They can be tracked down and destroyed so the Russians are less confident of being able to hide evidence. So they may kill fewer people on that basis.
(It’s disgusting, trying to psychoanalyze a horde of serial killers.)
Their past movements are also probably documented on satellite data. Locations of responsible commanders can also be documented according to which units were in which areas, and when.
In this case, real justice must be done. The world should help in any way it can.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
