Cremation as a means “to cover up the traces of crimes” and to avoid the repatriation of the bodies of those killed in battle. On Wednesday the mayor of Mariupol, Vadim Boychenko, denounced that the Russian mobile crematory ovens have started operating in the city. On its social pages, the Belarusian newspaper Nexta published a photo of an incinerator mounted on a truck.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, told SkyTg24: “Our secret services tell us that Russia is trying to hide its crimes and that is why it is using mobile cremation ovens to burn the corpses of our women and children. The same ovens. crematoria is also using them for his own army. He brought them from Crimea and is also using them to burn his own soldiers, so that they don’t see them in Russia, imagine if they were to see thousands of corpses returning to their homeland. “
Unfortunately, the technique of eliminating corpses on the spot seems not to be new: in 2015, at the time of the crisis in Crimea, the US Republican Mac Thornberry had assured that the Russians had used incinerators on wheels. Last February, before the invasion of Ukraine, the use of these macabre devices was again relaunched and considered possible even by some Western Intelligence. The images of the Russian media are few and the testimonies very rare: it is difficult to know their characteristics. What is certain is that the “truck-crematoria” exist and have their own market globally.
In some areas of the world, mobile cremation devices are intended for health emergencies to eliminate corpses (of large animals, such as pigs, cows or horses, but also humans) and avoid health risks in the event of high contagiousness or decomposition of the bodies.
The Chinese platform Alibaba even has them in its online catalog. The price of a mobile crematorium called “human” (“crematorium machine, human furnace”) of the Ceres brand ranges between 44,000 and 54,000 dollars: it is a container in 40HQ format, that is almost 13 meters long, 2.44 wide and 3 high, which therefore can be towed by a truck. The technical data sheet states that the chamber reaches 700-900 ° C and that the burning time varies between 20 and 35 minutes. In one day, therefore, dozens of bodies can be cremated.
In the online catalog of the Chinese brand Baoling, specialized in crematory ovens since 1970, among the various “static” models there is also on sale an “integrated mobile cremation device” designed specifically for the Russian market and equipped with a trailer, incinerator, cooling unit, smoke abatement. It has a dual power supply: diesel for the furnace and electric to operate the components. The same site offers a template designed for Indonesia and one for Colombia.
