Press releases

19 Jun 2018

Remains of border guard killed in 1941 reburied in Minsk

MINSK, 19 June (BelTA) – The remains of the Belarusian border guard handed over by Ukraine have been reburied near the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Tarasovo, Minsk District, BelTA learned from the State Border Committee.

The ceremony to rebury the remains of border serviceman Junior Sergeant Timofei Morozov, who died in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in summer 1941, took place on 19 June. Attending the ceremony were Metropolitan of Minsk and Zaslavl Pavel, Patriarchal Exarch of All Belarus, Deputy Chairman of the State Border Committee Vladimir Moiseyenko and also officers of the State Border Committee, servicemen, cadets of the Border Service Institute, border guard veterans.

According to Metropolitan Pavel, thanks to joint efforts it became possible to identify the soldier, transport its remains to his native land and give him a proper burial.

Vladimir Moiseyenko stressed for his part that another soldier got an opportunity to come back to his land.

As it was reported, the remains of the border guard were given to the Belarusian side in a ceremony on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border on 6 June. Search operations have been going on for years in the Zelenaya Brama forest in the Kirovograd Oblast of Ukraine, the place of fierce battlers in the summer-autumn 1941. Search battalions discovered the mass graves of Soviet soldiers who died in July-September 1941. Some remains were identified. Among them were the remains of Junior Sergeant Timofei Morozov, a native of the Byelorussian SSR.

The organization that conducts excavations was unable to find his family in Belarus and therefore addressed the Belarusian State Border Committee via the State Border Service of Ukraine to consider the transfer of the soldier's remains and dog tag. It was established that Timofei Morozov was a native of the Sudilovichi village, Dubrovno District which was completely destroyed during the Great Patriotic War and rebuilt in the post-war years. It was decided to re-inter the remains of the soldier in the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in Tarasovo.