Diplomatic channels between the UK and Russia have maintained a centuries-old tradition of grave tending for the fallen of wars long past, proving that there are notions in international relations that transcend even the sternest political policies.
What’s more, news reports say that there is no communication between the nations over maintaining the graves of the other’s fallen soldiers, but various lines of evidence suggest that the Russians have continued to do so even without payment or special request from the British government.
Over the past 200 years, Great Britain and Russia have been allies and enemies, friend and foe, cousins and colleagues.
There are 663 fallen British soldiers behind the borders of the Russian Federation: casualties of operations long forgotten, in Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and Vladivostok. Typically, the UK’s Commonwealth War Graves Commission relies on a mixture of Russian Federation military and paid contractors to take care of these graves and ensure they are clean and the gardens are maintained.
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, efforts by the West to isolate the aggressor nation led to various long-standing agreements being cast into geopolitical limbo.
The Guardian reports, however, that though communication with these contractors and military personnel has ceased, pictures from civilians have shown that even during the last 3 years of the war, British soldiers’ graveyards have been maintained, leading authorities in the UK who tend to 671 Red Army graves in Britain to continue as they have done for so long.
“We haven’t seen the graves but we think they are still being maintained,” said Gareth Hardware, the Commission’s area director for the UK and northern countries. “We are maintaining their graves in our cemeteries.”
“The cemetery looks very well maintained. Someone is taking care of it, even in these difficult times,” an amateur Russian historian, considered by the Commission as a credible source, wrote in a blog post last summer after visiting Arkhangelsk.
The Guardian continued saying that a British diplomat in Moscow visited Murmansk on Remembrance Day last year with a Russian counterpart and reported back that the cemetery there was in good condition.
The same is true for Germany and Russia, who for very obvious reasons have much larger burial enclaves for the other, with graves totaling more than half a million for each.
“We still recover Red Army soldiers in Germany each year and will provide them a proper grave in Germany,” said Dirk Backen, general secretary of the German war graves commission. 600,000 Soviet soldiers lie in German lands, while the 760,000 Germans who fell on Russian soil during the world wars are also having their cemeteries maintained.
US-Russia group hug
The honored dead aren’t the only remaining connections either. Space-bound cooperation remains open between the West and Russia. Since the war in Ukraine began, several Russian cosmonauts have ridden to the International Space Station and worked alongside NASA, ESA, and JAXA astronauts in maintaining the international platform.
Last week, GNN reported that two NASA astronauts stranded on the ISS were finally being allowed to return home. The team that was to be their relief included Kirill Peskov, a Tuvan Russian cosmonaut, whose trip would have involved him arriving in the US, receiving a briefing from NASA mission control, and riding a US-made SpaceX Dragon capsule to the ISS—all massive security breaches if done in any other government department.
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Last March, NASA’s Crew 8 spacecraft arrived at the ISS, and their arrival was recorded with a video of a pile-on group hug in microgravity. Arriving with them was Roscosmos’ Alexander Grebenkin.
In the video, Crew 8 mission commander Matthew Dominic is mobbed by NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, but also Belarussian Soyuz 24 mission flight engineer Marina Vasilevskaya.
Dominic then moves to greet Soyuz 24 mission commander Oleg Kononenko, while the rest of his crew follow behind hugging those wearing the red white and blue and the white blue and red.
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Astronauts have a unique way of seeing the world, figuratively and literally. Looking down on our home from low-Earth orbit day after day, they realize (and they all say they do) that space is an incredibly harsh environment, and everything we humans have and need is concentrated on this single planet with no alternative.
As regards US-Russia relations, you can see in the video what they think of the current tensions, and perhaps we should all take a leaf out of their books.
WATCH the micrograv group hug below…
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