Only the dead, it’s often said, have seen the end of war. In Latvia, thousands of Soviet soldiers killed in World War II are still waiting for that certainty. In a field outside Priekule, in the country’s rural Courland region, volunteers from Legenda Military Archaeology fan out across the soil in search of the missing. The group — an international network of enthusiasts and supporters — has spent years recovering the remains of the fallen from World War II and providing them a proper burial.
On a chilly morning, the volunteers sweep the ground with metal detectors, acting on a tip from a landowner. The devices hum constantly: spent bullets, twisted shrapnel, fragments of ordnance. Then a shout goes up across the field. A rusted Soviet helmet has appeared in the churned earth. The diggers kneel and clear away soil until a jawbone emerges, followed by the full skeleton of a soldier who died here more than 80 years ago.
Advertisement
detail: “instory_51”
}));
Until recently, this discovery would have set in motion a familiar bureaucratic chain, ending with remains repatriated to Russia or interred in a Soviet military cemetery in Latvia. But now the diggers stop with a different understanding. This soldier is not going anywhere. The war that killed him ended generations ago; the war that keeps him from resting peacefully began on February 24, 2022.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has frozen the system for transferring Soviet war dead to the Russian Federation, the legal successor to the Soviet Union. Moscow no longer responds to notifications. Latvian authorities no longer receive instructions. As a result, thousands of recovered bodies remain in limbo — unclaimed by Russia, unburied by Latvia and trapped in a conflict that did not exist when these soldiers died.
Advertisement
detail: “instory_52”
}));
Advertisement
detail: “instory_53”
}));
The
future
Follow