A businessman in the republic of Udmurtia and a Kremlin-backed nonprofit organization that supports war veterans announced plans to build a “heroes village” for the families of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.
The Defenders of the Fatherland foundation said local businessman Andrei Chernov donated 10 acres of land to four widows and their children in Udmurita, some 1,000 kilometers east of Moscow.
“We’ve now started a donation drive to collect funds for the construction of houses on the allocated plots,” the foundation said in a social media post on Tuesday.
A state television report on the project said the property donated by Chernov was already connected to the electricity and gas networks.
“You’ll have to draw water from a well. Roads are currently being built,” Chernov told the soldiers’ families in the Rossiya 1 report. “We’re just beginning this work.”
Organizers said the village will be called “Homeland,” and its streets will be named after the killed soldiers whose families plan to live there.
At least 914 soldiers from the republic of Udmurtia have died in the war against Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, according to a tally by the BBC’s Russian service and the independent news outlet Mediazona.
Defenders of the Fatherland is headed by Anna Tsivileva, Russia’s new deputy defense minister and President Vladimir Putin’s first cousin once removed.
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