[ad_1]
Experts believe that these are the remains of people killed by the Soviet NKVD in 1937-1939. It is one of the largest mass graves found in Ukraine to date. It was discovered in preparation for the development of the airport area in Odessa, Guzaliuk said. Mass graves have already been found in these areas in previous years.
According to S. Guzaliukas, it is impossible to identify the victims because documents from the time of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin are stored in Moscow. “No one will give us these documents under the current Russian government,” he said. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, relations between Russia and Ukraine deteriorated dramatically.
According to Ukrainian historians, during the Stalinist years, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians were imprisoned in forced labor camps (gulags) or killed. In addition, millions of Ukrainians died during the Great Famine of 1932 and 1933, which Stalin caused by forcibly collectivizing agriculture. Ukraine calls it organized genocide.
