MOSCOW, June 10 (RAPSI) — Russia’s Civic Chamber has appealed to the Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov requesting to check the situation with the desecration of burials dated back to the Great Patriotic War in the Tosno District of the Leningrad Region. 

Secretary of the Chamber Lydia Mikheyeva thinks it necessary to suspend any construction activity on the land plots where the remains of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland were found, until the measures to perpetuate their memory are completed. 

Earlier, Chairwoman of the Commission on Youth, Volunteerism and Patriotic Education Elena Tsunayeva has said that this situation had been under the control of the Civic Chamber since last year, when a statement was received from participants in the search movement that they could not organize search work on land plots owned by Evrika company. 

The search movement participants were simply not allowed there, despite the official data and evidence that the remains of our soldiers and military graves unaccounted for are there. According to the available archival data, there are at least 100 mass graves of soldiers of the 56th rifle division. 

By now, five soldiers' medallions have been found there, and there is hope they could be read, the social activist said. According to Tsunayeva, investigators should take a firm position on the issue, because this is the first precedent. Certainly, there are laws in place that protect unaccounted graves of fallen soldiers, but it is very difficult to register violations of such laws by land plot owners. 

The Chamber hosted discussions on amendments to the law on perpetuating the memory of those killed in the defense of the Fatherland and other legislative acts related to the topic of search work. All the participants expressed the opinion that it was necessary to toughen the respective punishments and introduce more severe measures with respect to repeated violations of the relevant legislation, Tsunayeva stressed. 

The Investigative Directorate of the federal Investigative Committee for the Leningrad Region opened a criminal case over destruction or damage of military graves, monuments, or other memorial structures and objects.