Time to read: 24 minutes(s)

Over the past year of the war in Ukraine, Kuban activist Vitaly Votanovsky has visited nearly 1,500 graves of Russian soldiers. He regularly published photos with their names on his Telegram channel, "Titushki in Krasnodar"In early April, Votanovsky left Russia – According to him, security forces hinted at the imminent initiation of criminal cases.

In mid-March, shortly before his emigration, a correspondent from "NotMoscow Speaking" traveled with Votanovsky through the villages and cemeteries of Kuban. Observing the activist, he learned the reasons for this "unhealthy" occupation, how he found the right burial sites, and what the families of fallen soldiers thought of the war.

"Where are we going?" asks Votanovsky, barely climbing into the car. We're starting in the village of Starominskaya, almost 200 kilometers from Krasnodar. It's just after nine o'clock. "My friend and I (Kuban activist Viktor Chirikov — editor's note) We always set out at dawn to make the most of the daylight hours.

Votanovsky is pleased – we plan to tour the northern Kuban region, areas new to him. He usually explores the south: it's closer by car from Krasnodar or on the way to the coast. He's often combined his "expeditions" with vacations: "It's like visiting a grave, and at the same time, you can take a dip in the sea."

There are not many graves in the new cemetery in Starominskaya yet.

Votanovsky approaches the fresh tombstone.

- Here you go, please. - He looks closely at the date of birth. - Oh, no, this one is a bit old [for war].

Spotting a flag in the distance, he moves toward it—the kind often used by soldiers. After the rain, mud clings to his sneakers, but Vitaly confidently maneuvers between the fences. He's clearly a frequent visitor to the cemetery.

The "flag" by the gravestone is a military intelligence banner. The man in the photo is barely 22 years old. Votanovsky carefully photographs the cross. He moves on to the next one.

"Here's a Wagner, you can tell by the wreath," he points. The wreath is truly unlike any other—bordered in scarlet, with a black cross of flowers and a gold plastic star in the center. "All the Wagners have these now. It's good they started marking them—before, the only way to tell if someone was a mercenary was by questioning them," Votanovsky explains. "And most likely, he's a former prisoner. Since November, 99% of the Wagners we've found are from prison colonies."

He's right about the wreaths. such Now they are putting it on the dead mercenaries all over Russia.

— What do you think about when you look at graves?

Votanovsky thinks for a moment.

— Am I mistaken? Have I published someone who didn't actually die in the war?

- What's wrong with that?

"This, it turns out, is false data. And my job as a researcher is to ensure there is no error."

Votanovsky is a retired lieutenant colonel. He retired from the army more than ten years ago, but his military bearing remains. Standing between the obelisks, he stands almost at attention, speaking with his eyes slightly past his interlocutor, as if reporting.

— Are these just numbers for you, or what?

"Why not?" Votanovsky sighs. "There are young people who died at twenty. I have a daughter of a similar age. It's unbelievable—so young, and already lying in the ground! Their future was taken away. Our state justifies [their deaths] by citing some positive role they played for the country. But if they hadn't died, they would have contributed so much more."

— Have you ever cried when looking at these graves?

- No, I haven't had to.

Votanovsky started visiting cemeteries last April. First, he visited a cemetery in the Dinsky district out of curiosity, but found no one. Then he did it again. And since the summer, he and a friend have been searching for the dead.

"This is how we're trying to reach people, to tell them about the scale of the disaster," Vitaliy explains. "Our state is built on lies. This applies to what's happening in Ukraine, and the death toll as well. And it's disgusting."

He prepares for every trip—reading news about the dead, planning his route so as not to repeat the same route. He checks the weather: "Walking through a cemetery in the rain isn't much fun."

"One time, a caretaker told us that four people had been brought to the city of Neftegorsk," Vitaly recalls on the way. "So we went looking for them. We scoured five cemeteries around, but found no one. Sometimes, even people give us false information."

According to the activist, military graves are most often found in small villages or where there is a nearby army base. He calls the first wave of those killed in Ukraine "victims of career advancement."

"Who does our state pay properly? Civil servants, the police, and the army. There are no social mobility opportunities in the country. Therefore, in the provinces, the main motive for serving is money."

Votanovsky recalls his conversation with one cemetery “digger”.

"The guy told me exactly this: 'Well, I'd gladly die [in the war] – as long as my family could live on.' He said, 'What do I see in life? I dig a grave, come home, sleep – and then go back to work. And I don't see a silver lining – I'm buried in debt,'" Vitaly quotes his interlocutor. "I've been told similar things in several places."

When meeting relatives of the fallen at the cemetery, Votanovsky "doesn't pry into their hearts" – he only asks about their attitude toward the war. Those who buried their loved ones are most often opposed, the activist notes.

"A person's heart was cut—and he perceives [the war] negatively. And the rest—the older the person, the more he'll be in favor."

Over the course of a year, Vitaly found over a thousand burial sites. He enters the deceased's data into a database, which can be used build Graphs and age distribution analysis. Dates of death allow one to indirectly track the intensity of the fighting. However, Votanovsky is confident that he has identified only a small fraction of the total number of fatalities in Kuban.

"There are people who haven't been identified. We haven't been everywhere, and not all obituaries are officially published. So the likelihood of a missed target is higher than a false alarm."erroneous identification - approx. ed.).

Almost half of the finds are graves of prisoners located in the cemetery in the village of Bakinskaya (is located near the resort town of Goryachiy Klyuch, counts«official» PMC cemetery «Wagner» - approx. ed.). After their photos were published, relatives of the victims began writing to Votanovsky.

"Someone thanked me for finding out where their loved ones were buried. No one had informed them of their deaths. Several people immediately asked for help with the exhumation. They want to transport the bodies of their loved ones to their homeland."

There are almost four thousand residents in the village of Kanelovskaya. According to locals, at least five people from here were mobilized. "Someone has a son, someone has a grandson, or a nephew. Everyone is worried about them, they want the war to end. They're fed up," says 30-year-old Nadezhda, a resident of the village.

Two of the mobilized soldiers had already died—Votanovsky had read about this in the news. One of them was Valery Zhelnov. We meet his mother-in-law by chance as we leave the cemetery. Valentina Beya is 74 years old and has long since retired. In fact, Zhelnov isn't her son-in-law—he hadn't yet married her daughter; they had only been married for nine months. But the pensioner considers Zhelnov one of her own: "Valera was such a good man! He always called me 'Mom!' My daughter suffered greatly [after his death], I thought she'd go crazy."

Treading heavily through the mud, she leads us to the edge of the cemetery. A tricolor flag hangs over one of the graves. Faded tin obelisks and stunted shrubs surround it. Against this backdrop, the bright plastic wreaths are especially striking.

In the photo, a large-faced man in military uniform looks down from the cross. He died at the age of 43.
"They buried him well," Valentina says. "A brass band came, and there were half a village full of people there! I've lived here forty-three years, and I've never seen so many cars at a funeral. Valera is considered a hero—they put his photo up in the district museum in Starominskaya, and they remembered him at school too..."
According to the pensioner, Zhelnov was mobilized in September. He went straight to the military registration and enlistment office: "He said, 'What, am I supposed to hide behind your skirts? If it's necessary, then it's necessary.'"

As a civilian, Valery worked as a driver for a local farmer.

"He had two vehicles—a KAMAZ for grain and another, smaller one. The smaller one was the one they took him in after the funeral service."

Valentina carefully straightens the flag ("it's frayed on the wreaths") and sighs: "Oh, it's scary, my God." Votanovsky stands silently behind.

At first, Valery spent his time at the front in the trenches. Then they found him a more familiar occupation—they put him behind the wheel: "He transported the wounded, the dead, and food." The pensioner recalls how he complained to her, "Mom, I'd rather be in the trenches. There's nowhere to hide in the car."
Zhelnov called his loved ones from the front almost every day.

"He said the shelling was terrifying—so bad you could barely stick your head out. It was okay during the day, but at night it was a nightmare."

He was allowed home for a short time around New Year's. Valentina remembers that Valery didn't want to go back to the front—and that he had a constant chest ache.
"He'll just grab it like that," the woman hugs herself tightly. "Must be a seizure or something. I'm telling you, Valera, you need to see a doctor, go to the hospital! And what hospital is there before New Year's? We were drinking too... He'll sit there for a while, let him go, and then he'll go on living."

In early January, Zhelnov returned to his unit. But on the 20th, he suddenly fell ill and never got up. According to Valentina, doctors diagnosed a stroke.

"He had a hemorrhage, in the brain and heart," the pensioner sighs again, rubbing her reddened eyelids. "Blood vessels burst. I think from stress. He was fine [before the war]. He saw a lot of things in the trenches... Then there were the dead he carried. It all accumulated, and he had a stroke."

— How did you react to his departure for war?

"Oh, it's bad! It's bad!" Valentina's eyes instantly fill with tears. "I cry for him every day! And my daughter cries, and her son!"

The pensioner dreams of the war ending soon – besides her daughter, she also has “sons,” and they could be taken away too.

"My son was mobilized before Valera. But then they brought him back—he has three minor children. And he was already at the military registration and enlistment office!" the woman sobbed. Despite her fear for her children, she is certain that Zhelnov defended the homeland from the "Banderites."

Having agreed with her, we leave.

Valentina remains at the grave, once again straightening the already straight flag.

Votanovsky didn't plan on becoming a military man. Born in 1972 in the Tambov region, he grew up fatherless. His main passion was electronics.

"I was always tinkering and soldering," he recalls. "I had a friend who repaired televisions. You'd go to his place and it would smell like rosin, and there'd be an oscilloscope on the table. It was a real mess, smoky... But I was interested; I dreamed of working like that, too. So after school, I enrolled in the Tambov Military Aviation Engineering School."

After graduating with honors, Votanovsky went to serve in the Orenburg region, at the Chebenki airfield. They promised to provide housing quickly—Vitaly got married in 1994. At the airfield, he managed the radar system responsible for aircraft landings. The equipment was soon upgraded—Votanovskiy is proud of how he improved its operation: "It turns out I was improving the radio navigation situation in the country. When you see positive changes, you're motivated to continue serving."

But over the years, the motives to serve only diminished.

The airfield's equipment and staff were gradually reduced. In 2005, Votanovsky enrolled in the Gagarin Air Force Academy. While he was studying there, the military unit in Chebenki was disbanded. And after the reforms announced by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov in 2008, Vitaly's alma mater, the Tambov Aviation School, was also closed.

By then, Votanovsky was already the head of communications at the aviation school in Krasnodar. He had 2,5 men under his command. But the changes in the army were becoming increasingly irritating: "I saw Serdyukov up to no good," he fumes as we wander through the cemetery on Shkurinskaya's page. Of the eight cemeteries we visited that day, this was the only one without those killed in Ukraine. But there were other graves with military symbols—earlier ones.

"Most likely Syria," Vitaly estimated. "There's a lot of that, too."

In 2011, Votanovsky himself was laid off. He says he could have found a position and stayed in the army if he'd wanted to, but "I couldn't take it anymore."

"They closed it down here, they closed it down there... You build something, you waste your nerves, and it gets destroyed. Look," Vitaly starts to fire. "From 1994 to 2005, I built the country's mobilization reserve. I traveled all over Russia, collecting equipment for the communications battalion. That meant finding it, getting it from warehouses, bringing it back, preserving it until [a possible] war... I traveled in boxcars—winter, fall, it didn't matter! You freeze like a cow, shitting in those holes punched in the floor... And then one day it all turns out to be unnecessary. And the equipment has to be returned. You get back in the boxcar, drag yourself somewhere... A monkey's work! The state spends money, resources, your own life, and the efficiency in the end is zero.

After his discharge, Votanovsky worked for a construction company, and then finally found his dream job – repairing televisions and laptops. Leaving the army (and a pay cut) strained his relationship with his wife; Vitaly divorced in 2016. His two adult daughters live separately. This arrangement suited him: "I don't have a family; I do what I want."

Since 2017, Votanovsky has spent most of his free time on another passion: political activism.

Vitaly attended his first rally while still in the military—after his discharge, he'd been off-duty in the army for six months. Following the December 2011 Duma elections, protests against widespread vote-rigging swept across the country. At the Krasnodar rally, Votanovsky "didn't hold any signs," simply watching from the sidelines. But he felt the people were "not being heard":

People came out and said, "Guys, you're falsifying the data." And the response was silence.

He went to the 2012 presidential elections as an observer – for the first time in his life.

According to the man, he was given a “lousy” plot of land – in Krasnodar Psychiatric Hospital No. 7 (the polling station there is still operating - approx. ed.). Votanovsky remembers that there were 127 patients in the facility—they completed the ballots in an hour and a half, though the activist was not allowed to observe the "unruly" patients voting. The rest of the time, the observers and commission members drank tea and chatted.

— The headmistress said, "Usually, the way people vote in our mental hospital is the same as the rest of the country." At the end of the day, we counted—Putin had 70%. And the headmistress said, "See, 70% of the crazies vote for Putin." I was laughing so hard!

After the elections, Votanovsky spent several years “simply reading Navalny and watching the Dozhd TV channel.”

"I've always been against Putin," he says. "I agree with Valeria Novodvorskaya that 'a prison guard can only build a prison camp.' But when you're in the army, your main focus is service and home life. And then I was discharged, and I had free time. Knowledge accumulated—I caught him in a lie here, I caught him there... Quantity turns into quality—and your mood changes."

After the "He's Not Dimon to You" protest in 2017, Votanovsky began attending rallies consciously and joined Navalny's Krasnodar headquarters. That same year, at a rally in support of the politician, Votanovsky, according to him, encountered "provocations."

"In Kyiv, on Maidan, the so-called 'titushki' were causing fights and beatings among protesters. I saw the same thing here," he recalls. "The provocateurs were private security officers, and they were protected by civilian SOBR officers. The SOBR unit even had the same name as the one on Maidan – 'Berkut.' I collected all the photos and videos from the rally and used [the facial recognition service] FindFace to identify these people. I filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office, but they told me there were no violations."

At this point I got offended and said, "Guys, from now on I'm going to write down all your nasty things." And I started making my own list.

On the Telegram channel "Titushki v Krasnodar," Votanovsky began posting the names and photos of security officials he believed were involved in the persecution of activists. Regional and city officials, FSB officers, and officers from the Center for Combating Extremism also joined "Votanovsky's list." Vitaly studied "protest" cases, watched videos of rallies, and added everyone he could find to his "database."

His list contains almost seven thousand people.

- Why do you need so much?

"You have to know the scoundrels by sight. Sooner or later, the government will change, and these comrades will have to be asked: 'Why did you give false testimony? Why did you do this or that?'"

— And are they all just "scoundrels"?

— No. But it's good material for analysis. There is a criminal case against [lawyer] Mikhail. Benyasha: Allegedly, during a rally in Krasnodar, he beat up police officers at the police station on Oktyabrskaya Street. Two city administration employees, Borisov and Bolbat, testified to this. But according to other materials, they were five kilometers away from Oktyabrskaya Street at the same time! And there's video that confirms this. When I put it all together, we were very surprised. That's how, using my data, we caught Two people perjured themselves. I can show their photos.

Law enforcement agencies also began persecuting Votanovsky himself. In November 2017, he served his first 10-day sentence for disobeying police officers. The activist believes this case (like all others against him) was fabricated.

"I just left work, was not far from home, and the cops literally picked me up right at the entrance. The [case] file includes witnesses who weren't even present!"

Over six years of "activism," Votanovsky survived seven arrests and four searches—and remembers the date and details of each. Vitaly spent a total of 43 days in the detention center. His final twenty days were served on February 25, 2022, immediately after the invasion began—for standing outside wearing a jacket with the slogan "No to War."

Votanovsky doesn't use bank cards—his accounts are frozen. Since August 2019, he, like hundreds of activists across Russia, has been a witness in cause The Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) allegedly laundered 75 million rubles. Their accounts were frozen as a "security measure."

According to Votanovsky, security forces repeatedly threatened him with prison.

"Major Golubev of the Krasnodar criminal investigation department told me I was an 'enemy of the state.' He called it his 'failure' that I hadn't been jailed yet," the activist recounts. "I have his photo and the license plate number of the car he drives. Should I show you?"

Because of the publication of the "grave" photos, Vitaly was repeatedly wished "to die" on social media. In February 2023, unknown persons called him, offering to "buy a plot in the cemetery." But he takes such things calmly: "Whoever wants to kill does it quietly. And I'm no longer at an age to be afraid."

"Didn't you ever want to get back to normal life? A dacha, maybe, some relaxation..."

Votanovsky shrugs.

"Someone's goal is to plant cabbage, but mine is to return the country to a democratic path of development. It's pure extremism these days to return the Constitution to its original form! Fair elections, equality before the law..."

— And if you don’t succeed?

"Movement is life," he philosophizes. "Someone has to fight. A friend of mine says, 'It's safer abroad, but it's more interesting here.' I've never even had a passport—I just ordered one, just in case." Votanovsky shrugs. "But honestly, sometimes I just want to give up and leave. I get tired of trying to prove to people what's right and what's wrong."

Two folding garden chairs stand next to the grave with wreaths. A married couple, both around fifty, are sitting on them. They came to the Kushchevskaya cemetery to visit their son.

Seeing us, the man stands up.

"Would you like to remember?" he holds out bags of candy. We each take one.

He sinks into a chair. His wife does not take her eyes off the grave.

"Today would have been 24 years," her voice is barely audible. "Forty days haven't passed yet."

On the cross is a photo of a guy in a dress uniform.

"He was a signalman," my father explains. "Apparently, they found him with the Haimars..."

"His unit was the front line," the mother adds. "They were really hard at work there."

According to the couple, their son was in the war from the very beginning and has a medal. The family comes from a military family, with both his father and grandfathers serving. But the couple tried to dissuade their son from going to war.

"We're parents, damn it. We'd rather he lived nearby and nothing like that happened," his father says. "But on the other hand, he was raised from childhood: duty and honor above all else. When the war came, they told him, 'If you decide to quit, we'll understand.' He hesitated and hesitated, then gave up. 'But I took an oath! How am I supposed to write a report now that I'm rescinding my oath?'"

The mother notes that not everyone did this.

"A lot of them fled the war. They abandoned the business and used all sorts of tricks to get out of contracts."

— And why did your son hesitate?

"For people who serve, the oath is their duty," the man explains. "They're doing their job, working for the country. That's what they're fighting for. It's not like, 'We want to tear Ukraine apart, we're against those hohols.'"

His parents repeatedly reiterate that their son and his comrades were simply "working" in Ukraine: "They were given a task, and they carried it out." They say their son felt no "hatred or malice" toward Ukrainians.

The father of the family is originally from Kyiv. His parents are buried there, and he also has other relatives. But he didn't discuss the war with them because he considers them "zombified." He laments that he used to visit his relatives several times a year, but then their attitude toward Russia changed: "They believed what they saw on TV more than us." He admits there's "nothing" to talk about with them now.

Votanovsky asks the couple whether the death of their son influenced their attitude towards the war.

The man shakes his head.

"No. We don't even think or talk about war as such. We're not some kind of super-patriots. Our son was simply doing his duty. If there aren't people like him in the country, it's not worth a dime."

Father doesn't look at us.

“My wife and I have thought about a lot of things,” he says finally. “Yes, sometimes parents lose their children. No one is immune. A person can simply be hit by a car, have a blood clot, or have a brick fall on their head. What happened to us was a coincidence. Yes, he was more likely to die; he was at war. But not on the front lines! He wasn’t running around with a machine gun, or throwing grenades—he was sitting and organizing satellite communications.” The man’s voice grows louder. “Some will crawl through the trenches and come back alive. And some—just like that… It’s inevitable, and it’s been like this all our lives! All our lives!” he insists, though no one argues with him.

The man recalls his grandmother, who had four children, two of whom died tragically in their youth. He continues, growing increasingly heated.

"And we're sitting here, talking about some bullshit! About some country, like, everything's fucking wrong here... But what are we given?" He snaps his fingers in the air. "Just like that! There it is, the universe—a meteorite will hit, and nothing will happen. And no one will do a damn thing." He takes a breath. "No matter how you talk about [the war], it's still bullshit. You wouldn't understand..."

The mother is wrapped in a shawl in a chair.

"We were constantly watching all these political shows," she says slowly, drawing out her words. "We listened to economists..."

"We're not listening to anything right now," Father chimes in. "It's like water in a mortar—someone's talking about one thing, and someone else about another."

We are silent for a short time.

"But everything will be fine. The country is moving in the right direction," the woman suddenly says stubbornly. She nods her head slightly in time with her words. "The main thing is that we're not being influenced."

"In the 'correct' one – which one?" I ask.

- If you are oppositionists, you will not understand us.

The garden chairs creak.

"I want it all to be worth it," the man quietly admits. "We're a little rooting for that."

We say goodbye. The couple packs up the chairs and walks arm in arm to the car.

In this cemetery, we find several more graves with photographs of soldiers. I notice one of them myself.

“I’m getting old, I missed it,” Votanovsky is surprised.

"Don't you get the feeling there's something unhealthy about this driving through graves?" I ask as we leave the cemetery.

Vitaly answers without thinking.

"Of course there is. How can you deny it? What do I tell myself? That we need to open people's eyes no matter what. And how else can we convey to them the scale of the madness that's going on? There's no other way."

By the end of the day, the wreaths begin to dazzle the eyes, merging into an endless stream of sorrow.

"Zelensky? I'd shoot him myself!" a waitress in the village of Kislyakovskaya says heatedly. "But he's a total junkie!"

She also expresses outrage that the family of her mobilized fellow countryman hasn't received any funeral benefits. The young man allegedly died not on the front lines, but while resting at his post. He was 23 years old.

At the cemetery in Leningradskaya, Votanovsky shows off an "interesting wreath." Its ribbon bears the inscription, "In the name of peace on earth." Vitaly visited this village six months ago.

“See, I even remember where each wreath is,” he grins.

We ask the cemetery workers about those mobilized in the village. A young man in a khaki suit says that many of his acquaintances were taken away: "One has already returned as the 'two hundredth.'"

His companion, who is about fifty years old, asks what publication I am from.

"As long as it's not a liberal topic," he explains. "Otherwise they'll start spinning it into something bad. People like that should be shot on the spot."

The last cemetery is in the village of Shevchenkovo. It's a little out of the way, a neat square in the middle of fields. Nearby is a river, the reeds rustling. The two young men in military uniforms who lie there are not yet thirty.

Locals say both were mobilized in September and brought back soon after. Two fir trees were planted in the tiny park in the middle of the village in honor of the fallen. A total of 13 people out of a thousand residents of Shevchenkove were mobilized.

Spouses Zhora and Olga ((Names have been changed – editor's note) They went outside the gate for some fresh air. Both were middle-aged. Zhora, a welder, studied in Ukraine in the 70s and often traveled to Kharkiv. He says he "never fought over anything" with Ukrainians.

"How could they bring us to this fight?!" a man asks, perplexed, sitting on the porch outside his house. "We're brothers, we fought in the same Great Patriotic War... We understand America is to blame; it wants to rule the world. But such two fraternal nations... How did this happen?! Who's to blame?"

Olga looks at us warily. She hisses at her husband: "Zhor, that's it! They're signing you up!"

But then he can't take it anymore either.

"I'm scared for the children, of course!" the woman admits, shivering in the light breeze. "I feel sorry for our boys who died—one of them wasn't even married. And I feel sorry for Ukraine! I understand the Ukrainian people. They're shown one thing, and we're shown another. Ukrainians have nothing to do with it. I'm not angry with them."

— Do you believe TV?

— TV? We watch some things. We're already tired of it all. We're trying to spend more time with our children and grandchildren.

Zhora launches into a discussion about how “nothing depends on them.”

"What would you rather have – stop the war or reach Kyiv?" I ask.

Olga rolls her eyes.

"Why do we need Kyiv? Why is everyone there, oh my God... We don't need to go anywhere."

“It’s hard to say... There’s no order there, and there isn’t any here,” concludes Georgy.

It's getting dark. The air smells of smoke and dust from the fields.

We get into the car.

"You claimed your goal was to open people's eyes to the catastrophe," I ask Votanovsky in closing. "Are you sure they want to know about it?"

Vitaly looks at the road for a long time.

"We're working for the future. So that later we can assess the full scale." He turns to me. "There were the repressions of '37. We only know part of them. But imagine if we had digital information. If we'd known [fully] what happened under Stalin, maybe Putinism wouldn't have happened? Those comrades who threatened me..."

I'm just acting as a mirror. I take photos of graves, add coordinates—it's just a fact. People decide for themselves how to evaluate it. Don't you like what the mirror shows?

***

In early April, Vitaly Votanovsky left Russia. He is currently in Armenia, awaiting a European visa and organizing his "archives." According to the activist, he is currently settling into life in exile, with plans to move on to Germany or the Netherlands: Votanovsky studied German in school.

Vitaly admits he wants to try his hand at journalism, investigating corruption and police brutality. "I'm not a good writer, but I'm good at processing events and facts," he says.

Despite his departure, Votanovsky continues Publishing photos of military graves: "Friends Help." Currently, his database of confirmed dead in Krasnodar Krai and Adygea contains 1460 names.

Ilya Samoilov. Photo by the author