Why doesn’t Ukraine have a national military cemetery?
Why doesn’t Ukraine have a national military cemetery?
Families of the fallen have criticized the site, design & contracting process. The long-delayed memorial to Ukraine’s fallen - Kyiv’s version of Arlington cemetery – faces controversy and delay.
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Vira Lytvynenko hasn’t been able to have her son buried since March 2022, when he was killed while repelling a Russian offensive near the Mariupol Drama Theater.
Instead, Vira keeps the ashes of her son at home.
That’s because in the third year of Russia's full-scale invasion – and over ten years since the start of the war – Ukraine still does not have a national military cemetery.
Despite the Ukrainian military's remarkable burdens, the government has yet to build a national memorial for the fallen. Many veterans and their families fear this shows a lack of respect for those who lost their lives.
It would be as if there was no Arlington National Cemetery, the American resting place that serves as a powerful symbol of national gratitude, offering a sacred space for remembrance. Ukrainians seek a similar place to honor their soldiers and ensure their sacrifices are never forgotten.
“The state should have provided the best possible honoring of its fallen, because it seemed to me that there are certain sacred and infallible things in society. Civilian cemeteries are already running out of space,” said Taras Ishchyk, a serviceman in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, instead of transparently constructing a national memorial cemetery, the Ukrainian authorities have delayed the selection of a site, trying to build it far from Kyiv, and the design and tendering process itself is surrounded by scandals and corruption schemes. Critics say that this devalues the achievements of the soldiers who gave their all for Ukraine.
Vladyslav Lytvynenko, call sign ‘Vector,’ was Vira’s son. He was from Donetsk Oblast and lived in Mariupol until 2014. After Russia started the war in Donbas and occupied Crimea, Vladyslav, Vira, and the rest of their family moved to Kyiv. But in 2015, Vladyslav returned to Mariupol and joined Azov, where he participated in numerous battles in Donbas.
“All this time he was in Azov. In 2022, he was supposed to leave the army and start a civilian life, because he hadn't experienced it as an adult, having been fighting since he was 20,” said Vira, her eyes slowly filling with tears.
The full-scale invasion prevented that potential from being fulfilled.
Vira Lytvynenko's case is not the only one, as many other families are also waiting to honor their fallen defenders, as they simply have nowhere to bury their loved ones.
The Azov Patronage Service, which cares for the unit’s wounded, captured and fallen soldiers, has been raising the issue of a national military cemetery since 2014, explained Olena Tolkachova, the head of the Service.
In 2022, during the fighting in Mariupol, it called again the authorities to act, knowing how important the cemetery would become. The Counteroffensive approached the Ministry of Veterans' Affairs, which is responsible for this, but they did not respond to a request for comment.
“We have a family who is so hopeful for this particular cemetery that they did not take the body out of [the morgue]. And they are already in such a very depressed state because the cemetery has not been built in two years,” Olena said.
With no national military cemetery, local regions are left to bury dead soldiers themselves. Most military burial sites are currently created within existing cemeteries, and the graves of soldiers often similar to others.
It was only after calls from the families of the fallen fighters reached a fever pitch that the Ukrainian authorities began to take the first steps towards creating a military cemetery.
In May 2022, the first law regarding the National Military Memorial Cemetery was adopted, which simplified the land and construction procedures for its creation.
But it was only in April 2023 that the Kyiv city administration provided land near the Bykivnia forest, a burial site for victims of Stalin's repressions on the outskirts of Kyiv. The families of the fallen soldiers were promised the first burials there in 2023.
In August 2023, the authorities announced that the site had been changed.
Vira and other families were desperate, as they had been waiting for the burial of their fallen defenders for over a year.
The new location for the national memorial cemetery is outside of Kyiv, which is 20 kilometers from the city center. The families of the fallen soldiers are outraged by the long wait and the long distance from the capital.
For Vira it takes at least two hours to get there by public transport.
The memorial cemetery was supposed to be a place that would be visible to as many people as possible, so that would remind them of the price of Ukrainian independence. This location could mean fewer visitors.
After endless attempts to speed up the process, some families have already buried their relatives in local cemeteries. Others are simply tired, and have lost any energy for an argument over the issue.
In the summer of 2023, the architect for the project, Serhii Derbin, was chosen. The authorities did not announce any open competition for the large-scale national project. Instead, a tender was placed in the electronic public procurement system and only one person applied for it.
No one even knew about the tender for the design, explained Dartsia Verytiuk, creator of the concept of Pantheon of Heroes in Ternopil.
In a comment with The Counteroffensive, Derbin said that the tender was announced on the official website, where anyone interested could see it and participate.
By the end of 2023, the families had still not been able to bury their soldiers. The cemetery design was only presented in December 2023, alongside a new law to create the site.
The current design of the cemetery contains significant flaws and resembles a combination of a supermarket and an ancient temple in terms of the number of elements from different architectural styles that are combined, argued the designer Dartsia Verytiuk, who had made some suggestions for the memorial.
“None of our comments were accepted, and the project was not changed at all. It became clear that everything had been decided long ago,” she said.
But Serhii Derbin argued that most of the remarks from professionals were taken into account and that there are no unreasonable decisions in the project – all of them are balanced and thought out.
In July 2024, a tender for the construction of the cemetery was finally announced. Only one consortium, Building UA, a four-company group formed the very next day after the tender was posted, applied for the $44 million (1.8 billion hryvnias) national-level project.
Critics also could not understand, as it was in the case of choosing an architect and a construction company, why government officials favored granite as a material for the gravestones, rather than a lighter material.
Sandstone, which has a light color, would create an atmosphere of peace and tranquility, not sadness, like gray or even black granite, as Dariia Hirna, a journalist who covers military commemorations, explained.
It turned out that one of the companies that won the tender was Akam, a granite producer from Dnipro city. Akam belongs to a group of companies owned by Vadym Yermolaiev, who was sanctioned by Zelenskyy in 2023 for doing business in the Russian-occupied territories. His whereabouts are unknown, so The Counteroffensive has been unable to contact him for comment.
Any significant work at the cemetery site has been stopped. In September the SBU officially confirmed that Akam was part of a group of companies owned by the sanctioned Vadym Yermolaiev.
“This is a crime against the families of the fallen soldiers, against those servicemen who are still alive. All two tenders should be canceled and an open international competition should be held instead,” Taras Ishchyk said.
This means that even this year, the fallen defenders will not find honor and peace at a new national cemetery, and their families will have no place to visit their loved ones.
That includes Vira Lytvynenko, whose son sacrificed his entire young life to fight for Ukraine's independence.
NEWS OF THE DAY:
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
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UKRAINE AID ‘TOAST’ IF TRUMP WINS: Trump’s former National Security Security Advisor John Bolton said that American support to Ukraine would be "toast" if Trump is elected as president in November.
"The terms of the deal, Sen. Vance announced a few weeks ago: Russia keeps everything that it has, Ukraine says it won't go into NATO, and sweetness and light breaks out,” Bolton said sarcastically.
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RUSSIA 'DOUBLE TAP' ON MEDICAL CENTER KILLS 8: Russian forces struck a medical center in Sumy, a city in northeastern Ukraine, then hit it again as the building was being evacuated. More than 80 patients were in the hospital at the time, reports Reuters.
INTERESTED IN DEFENSE TECH? Tim and a few members of the team are in Lviv today, visiting the largest Ukrainian tech conference, IT Arena. Despite some major hiccups due to air alarms, they’re gathering the latest trends in Ukrainian miltech innovation over at Counteroffensive.Pro. Want to sign up? You can do that here.
CAT OF CONFLICT:
Today’s Cats of Conflict are Frosia and her daughter Liusia from Nastia's home.
Stay safe out there.
Best,
Tim
I don't think Arlington is a fair criticism or comparison. This national cemetery didn't exist until after the Civil War had ended and 360,000 Union soldiers gave their lives.
Ukraine's war is unfortunately ongoing — and has been for a decade, not just the last two years.
I hope that it ends soon, in a resounding Ukrainian victory, and with a suitable resting spot for its fallen heroes.
Heroiam Slava!
Arlington Cemetery was constructed on the confiscated lands of the family of Robert E. Lee. Build the Ukrainian national cemetery on land confiscated from a Putin associate.