The British Ministry of Defense released a video purportedly showing a crematorium truck the Russian army takes Russian. To Ukraine to deal with mass casualties. 

“If I were a soldier and knew that my generals had so little faith in me that they followed me around the battlefield with a mobile crematorium, or I was the mother or father of a son, potentially deployed into a combat zone, and my government thought that the way to cover up losses was a mobile crematorium, I’d be deeply, deeply worried,” UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the Telegraph.

Mobile crematoriums

“Previously, they’ve deployed mobile crematoriums to follow troops around the battlefield, which in anyone’s book is chilling,” Wallace said. “If I were a soldier and knew that my generals had so little faith in me that they followed me around the battlefield with a mobile crematorium, or I was the mother or father of a son, potentially deployed into a combat zone, and my government thought that the way to cover up loss was a mobile crematorium, I’d be deeply, deeply worried.”

“It’s a very chilling side effect of how the Russians view their forces, and for those of you who served and being a soldier, knowing that trundling behind you is a way to evaporate you if you are killed in battle probably says everything you need to know about the Russian regime.”

 The Russian media outlet MK reported in December that Putin was already making plans to deal with mass deaths should he invade Ukraine. There were at the time; an estimated 175,000 Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border. According to leaked legal documents, the report claimed that burial sites accommodating 100 corpses each were constructed as a priority and were expected to come into force on February 1. The cemeteries were intended to be used in conjunction with facilities to cremate bodies.

Hiding casualties

The report led to speculation that the crematorium would allow the Russian military to hide the extent of casualties, both Russian and Ukrainian. 

According to former US House Armed Services Committee Chairman Max Thornberry, Russia used crematoriums in the 2015 Donbas War in Ukraine. 

“The Russians were trying to hide casualties by taking mobile crematoriums with them,” Thornberry told Bloomberg. “They are trying to hide not only from the world but from Russian people their involvement.”

“Room to evaporate.”

Former Ukrainian Defence security head, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, told the media that the vehicles have a “room to evaporate” one human body at a time, and each vehicle can cremate “8-10 bodies per day.”

The Ukrainian government has stated that it will return all the bodies of Russian soldiers to the Russian government.

 After World War II, some casualties were buried in mass graves, some were incinerated, but relatively few were brought back home for burial. Some just disappeared. There are military graveyards all over north Africa, Italy, France filled with soldiers and sailors who never returned home. 

Remains of combatants from World War II are still being found worldwide. In 2019, the remains of 30 US soldiers killed in a battle in 1943 were found on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa. The German War Graves Commission is still actively exhuming and reburying the bodies of soldiers from multiple armies in central and southeastern Europe.

There have been no major multinational conflicts since World War II ended almost 80 years ago. Most armies go to great lengths to ensure that the bodies of their casualties are recovered and returned for burial close to home.

Unmitigated invasion

Many people are concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s relentless invasion of Ukraine, accompanied by his threats to resort to nuclear weapons, can trigger a multinational, even global, conflict. Such a conflict will challenge any methods of dealing with the remains of casualties. It could be argued that these preparations for mass casualties imply that this is precisely the type of conflict Putin intends to initiate.  

The prophets who envisioned the War of Gog and Magog foresaw a reality of a global war resulting in massive death focused in the Holy Land. Ezekiel described this in chilling terms, who prophesied that Jews would be assigned to deal with the dead bodies after the war to purify the land.:

On that day, I will assign a burial site to Gog in Yisrael—the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Sea. It shall block the path of travelers, for there Gog and all his multitude will be buried. It shall be called the Valley of Gog’s Multitude. The House of Yisrael shall spend seven months burying them to cleanse the land; The House of Yisrael shall spend seven months burying them to cleanse the ground; all the people of the land shall bury them. The day I manifest My glory shall bring renown to them—declares Hashem. And they shall appoint men to serve permanently, traverse the land, and bury any invaders who remain above ground to cleanse it. The search shall go on for seven months. As those who traverse the country make their rounds, any one of them who sees a human bone shall erect a marker beside it until the buriers have interred them in the Valley of Gog’s Multitude. Ezekiel 39:11-15

Same scenario, a different solution

Jeremiah presents the same scenario but with a different solution; the bodies will be heaped in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, the site where children were sacrificed to Molech, where birds and beasts will feast on their flesh for many months:

Assuredly, a time is coming—declares Hashem—when men shall no longer speak of Topheth or the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, but of the Valley of Slaughter; and they shall bury in Topheth until no room is left. The carcasses of this people shall be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them off. Jeremiah 7:32-33

Josh Wander volunteers for ZAKA, a  voluntary community emergency team. The name is an acronym for Zihuy Korbanot Ason (זיהוי קרבנות אסון‎), literally: “Disaster Victim Identification.” As part of their duties, ZAKA arrives at the scene of terrorist attacks, searching the scene with magnifying glasses and tweezers to ensure that every bit of material receives a fitting burial. Wander explained that coping with the reality of abandoned carcasses and bones, referred to as met mitzvah, is considered an essential act of piety. Judaism requires scrupulous care be taken to honor the dead body, including the disposal and handling of the corpse, based on a verse in Deuteronomy:

It would help if you did not let his corpse remain on the stake overnight but must bury him the same day. For an impaled body is an affront to Hashem: you shall not defile the land that Hashem your God is giving you to possess. Deuteronomy 21:23

It is forbidden by Jewish law.

Wander noted that the cremation trucks would be absolutely forbidden by Jewish law.

“Judaism does not allow for cremation,” Wander emphasized. “The army is prepared for such tragic circumstances and has a branch called Zach to deal with the casualties. ZAKA is prepared and recently had to deal with the disaster at Meron in which 45 people were killed.”

“Every man is created in the image of God which grants sanctity to the body, even after the person has died,” Wander said.

“Soul killers”

Rabbi Yosef Berger was horrified by the Russian army cremation trucks, noting that the Nazis had mobile gas trucks, called dushegubka (literally “soul killer”), made ready to carry out the murder of Jews should they have succeeded in conquering Palestine. 

“Preparing for mass death shows clearly that Putin is insane, just like Hitler was,” Rabbi Berger said. “He does not just want to conquer Ukraine. Whatever he says he wants, what he wants, and what he is prepared for is death. But he is smart, so he wants to hide it as much as possible. This is Amalek and Gog.”

“The Zohar states that there will be so many dead bodies in Israel at the end of the War of Gog and Magog that the birds will be eating their bodies for seven years. Sane people will not enter into such a war. The world is off-balance, partly insane already, to prepare for the War of Gog and Magog. Putin is already there.”

“It won’t help to prepare or to resort to politics. The only solution is to hold onto the Torah, the source of life. That will remain after all the horrors are over. The only solution is to hold onto the final stage, which is ‘God is One and His name is One.”

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