Finding Putin’s Dead Soldiers in Ukraine
On September 17, The Interpreter, a special project of the Institute of Modern Russia, will be presenting “An Invasion by Any Other Name: The Kremlin’s Dirty War in Ukraine,” an in-depth forensic accounting of evidence showing Russian weaponry and Russian soldiers in combat in the occupied regions of east Ukraine. Since Vladimir Putin has to date denied any involvement by his armed forces in the year-and-a-half-long war, one of the more difficult aspects of proving the contrary has been documenting “Cargo 200”—a long-used military euphemism to describe Russian war dead. The following excerpt from “An Invasion,” written by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, examines one case in particular and nicely ties it in with attempts by Russian civil society to get to the bottom of a “missing” paratrooper company of Russia’s Pskov Airborne Troops Division, said to have been killed in action in Ukraine.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/16/finding-putin-s-dead-soldiers-in-ukraine.html