Hundreds of wooden crosses that reportedly once marked the graves of Wagner Group mercenaries in Russia’s Samara Oblast were stacked high atop each other Friday—piled next to a gravesite that had been razed by a bulldozer, according to local outlet 63 RU. Photos of the scene were sent to the 63 RU, sparking outrage from those claiming to be veterans of the mercenary group once at the center of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “These people died for Russia, and you’ve erased their tombs,” an unnamed Wagner Group veteran said in a video from the scene, The Messenger reported. “What are you doing? Aren’t you afraid of God or anything?” The reported destruction comes two days after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Vladimir Putin-pal-turned-foe who founded the Wagner Group, died in a mysterious plane crash that U.S. officials think was an assassination. Local reports say the Wagner gravesite, which was visited by Prigozhin earlier this year, will soon be covered in concrete and modernized.
