Ukrainian searchers discover 650 bodies of soldiers fallen in ATO zone in one year

Senior officer of search operations at military civilian cooperation Colonel Mykhailo Kotylevsky told a round table panel hosted by Ukrinform on Tuesday.

“Starting from September 2014, the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out the work on searching for missing persons and evacuation of the Ukrainian servicemen’, law enforcement officers’, and other military formations’ bodies. Taking into account the limits on experience for search operations and resources, a joint search group of All-Ukrainian public association "Union of People's Memory" and the National Military History Museum of Ukraine was established on a rotating basis in 2014. The search teams found, exhumed and handed over to the group of civil-military cooperation, which works in the ATO zone, about 650 bodies and fragments of bodies of fallen Ukrainian servicemen, law enforcement officers, and other military formations for their further transportation to the forensic medical examination offices," he said.

Kotylevsky noted search and transportation of the bodies takes place within the framework of the pilot humanitarian project entitled "Evacuation 200.”