On Friday of May 8, in tribute to the memory of defenders of the legendary Saur-Mogila, Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Denis Pushilin laid a wreath at the memorial plaques with the names of the Red Army soldiers who died in 1943, as well as flowers at the Eternal Flame of the memorial complex and the graves of the militiamen killed in 2014, the press service of the Head’s Administration reports.
The mound’s history is inextricably linked with the liberation struggle during the Great Patriotic War and during today’s confrontation of Donbass against the Ukrainian Nazism.
In 1943, a series of fierce battles happened around this area. The battles for Saur-Mogila were especially deadly, since taking the pivotal height let the Red Army continue its further offensive to liberate the Donetsk region from the Nazis. Over 23 thousand Soviet officers and privates died here, the land literally ran red with blood. Saur-Mogila again became an arena of fierce battles between the People’s Militiamen of Donbass and the Ukrainian army’s military in 2014.