Expedition Exhumes 30 German WWII Soldiers on Bolshoi Tyuters Island

BOLSHOI TYUTERS (Sputnik), Alexander Mosesov — A total of 30 World War II German marines and soldiers have been exhumed on Russia's Bolshoi Tyuters island in the Gulf of Finland by a joint German-Russian expedition, Dmitry Volkov, representative German War Graves Commission (VDK) told Sputnik on Tuesday.

The international Russian-German expedition started its work on Thursday and aims to find the remains of fallen German and Soviet World War II soldiers on several islands in the Gulf of Finland in order to rebury them on the mainland. Over 120 remains of German soldiers are believed to be currently on the islands, according to the VDK.

"As of today, 30 people have been exhumed. The total number of those buried in the German graveyard is unknown. They are mostly from the Kriegsmarine [navy] and we did this work in 5 days," Volkov said.

The chances of finding any remains of German World War II soldiers on the Russian island of Gogland in the Gulf of Finland during the current expedition are very low, according to Volkov.

"We are going to Gogland from Bolshoi Tyuters today. We have no exact data on the location of the remains of the German soldiers but we will search for them. The chances of finding them during this first visit are very low," Volkov said.

The expedition is taking place alongside an ecological and geographical Russian Geographical Society (RGS) expedition to Russia’s Gogland and Bolshoi Tyuters islands, joined by volunteers and Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency journalists.