First sections of war memorial cemetery to be laid before this year's end – Minister for Veterans Affairs

Yuliia Laputina, Ukraine’s Minister for Veterans Affairs, assures that the construction of the National Military Memorial Cemetery is confidently coming along, adding that the first sections of the memorial are planned to be laid by the end of 2023.

Source: Laputina, quoted by Radio Liberty

Quote: "The National Military Memorial Cemetery is being created for the first time in the history of our state. Therefore, we look forward to fruitful cooperation of all related departments."

Details: According to the minister, the National Military Memorial Cemetery will be located on the territory of the Hatne territorial hromada in Kyiv Oblast, with a convenient location with access to public transport [a hromada is an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories – ed.].

The memorial will include a number of buildings and squares: a military cemetery, a museum, a ritual building, a modern crematorium and other necessary structures for organising honorary burials. The complex will combine both traditional burials and columbarium ones, Laputina assures.

Currently, the minister says, an early design of the cemetery is being developed, and its construction will take place in several stages, "so that by the end of 2023 the first stage of the structures can be put into operation and the burial of Ukrainian heroes can begin immediately."

Background:

• On 31 May 2022, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a bill providing for the creation of a National Military Memorial Cemetery in Ukraine, as well as determining the procedure for organising burials and reburials of deceased Ukrainian servicemen.
• At first the cemetery was supposed to be built in the Lysa Hora tract, but activists and the government opposed it.
• In March 2023, the Ministry for Veterans Affairs and the Ministry of Culture proposed the creation of a National Military Memorial Cemetery near the Bykivnia Graves Reserve in Kyiv.
• However, in August, it was stated by representatives of the Bykivnia Graves Reserve that it was impossible to build the memorial in the Bykivnia forest in a short time, because there may still be old burials.
• Then the location was changed: the Cabinet of Ministers approved the implementation of the National Military Memorial Cemetery project in the Hatne hromada near Kyiv by August 2025.
• Ukraine has not announced the number of casualties among soldiers since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation. Authorities and military leaders say the data will be disclosed after the war.

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