“GRUZ-200”: Krym.Realii publicized the database of thousands of Crimeans who died in the war on the side of Russia

The editors of Krym.Realiya (a Radio Liberty project) made public the “GRUZ-200” database created by it with a thousand identified Crimeans who fought in the Russian army and died in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The list contains information about their place of birth, the place of conscription or recruitment to the Russian army (including the actual military unit), as well as – for some of the dead – the exact or approximate place and date of death.

All data were obtained from open sources, including statements of Russian officials, posts of relatives of the deceased on social networks, publications in Crimean and Russian mass media. Together with experts, Krym.Realii journalists analyze the number and psychological profiles of the dead Crimeans, as well as the reasons for their participation in the Russian aggression against Ukraine.

In the database of dead Crimeans who fought against Ukraine, there are residents of all Crimean regions, but the most obituaries are from Sevastopol and Kerch. The list is dominated by contract workers and military personnel.

There are also mobilized, recruited prisoners and 11 conscripts. In the latter cases, as the author of the project, a Krym.Realii journalist, told Aleksina DorohanDNA tests were carried out for a long time, and burial data were not disclosed and became known later – from photographs of cemeteries and memorials on social networks. As of now, the status of about a third of the Crimeans killed in the war against Ukraine is still unknown and the editors continue to establish it.

There are no exact data on citizenship entered in this database, but judging by the place of birth and conscription or recruitment, Aleksina Dorohan assumes that most of the dead had Ukrainian citizenship. According to her data, in 82 cases it was established that the killed were Russian citizens who moved to Crimea before or after the Russian annexation of the peninsula, in 65 cases it was precisely established that the dead were citizens of Ukraine. At least 15 people are former Ukrainian soldiers who broke their oath to Ukraine.

The Russian authorities silence and hide information about the number of dead, as well as the circumstances and places of their death. This makes the analysis and collection of data by the Krym.Realii team valuable for the residents of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia, noted the producer of the GRUZ-200 project Angelika Rudenko.

Head of Krym.Realii Volodymyr Prytula also emphasized that the “GRUZ-200” project was created not to “perpetuate the memory of the occupiers”, but to draw attention to the large number of dead residents of the occupied and annexed Crimean peninsula of the Russian Federation, most of whom fought against their country, against the background of such official silence .

Krym.Realii continues to update the “GRUZ-200” database with a list of all identified Crimeans who fought on the side of the Russian army against Ukraine and died in the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Crimean project of the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Crimea. Realii was created in March 2014 – in the first weeks of the occupation and annexation of the Crimean peninsula by the Russian Federation. In the conditions of continuous pressure and persecution of project journalists by the Russian authorities, Krym.Realii continues to inform Crimeans about what is really happening in Crimea and beyond, and remains one of the leaders of the Crimean information field.