[marginalia_nu]

Seems at least implausible. Cremation is a fairly slow and energy intense process. If you wanted to dispose of bodies, there are easier ways.

Also sure sounds a lot like the rumors back during Covid about secret mass cremations to hide how many were dying.

[Veen]

The Russians have an obvious motivation to hide how many soldiers are dying. That doesn't make it true but "it sounds a bit like something else that was nonsense" isn't a very strong refutation.

[marginalia_nu]

> That doesn't make it true but "it sounds a bit like something else that was nonsense" isn't a very strong refutation.

It's improbable for the same reasons it was improbable the last time it wasn't true. Secret mass cremations just aren't practical from a logistical standpoint.

[varjag]

Mobile military crematories do exist in Russian military, there are public pre-war videos of them. Apparently the command seen enough need for them to manufacture the hardware. With a prior like that, it's entirely probable.

[paisawalla]

Anyone who has had a relative cremated knows that it takes 2+ hours for the body to be fully reduced to ashes and bone fragments. Two hours, for a single body, in a facility the size of a large garage. Just do some napkin math for what that means for the prospect of cremating a single body in something the size of a cement mixer.

Running non-stop with no breaks, bodies ready to go, matching the efficiency of the most optimal stationary crematories, working around the clock, a single truck could burn 12 bodies using 336 gallons of fuel (per https://www.lng2019.com/how-much-natural-gas-is-used-to-crem...) and generating 6.6 metric tons of CO2. For this to even make sense politically, there would have to be a number of bodies so large that burning it made more sense than anything else, even with how costly and obvious it would be to observers.

I'm open to your guesses, but I'm going to say one thousand innocents in a single place would be sufficiently atrocious. I say this because numbers like 100-200 are thrown around fairly casually when reporting on Ukraine and other locations, so I'm going up one magnitude from that. So 84 trucks working as described could finish this job in one day, releasing 5,500 metric tons of CO2 and consuming 2300+ gallons of fuel to do so. I leave it to the reader to determine whether it's plausible for a military in the midst of a very difficult war to dedicate the human and supply resources necessary to conduct such an operation (at peak efficiency, as described).

At the very least, the movement and fueling of 84 such trucks (or even 30 if we're spending a week doing this) should be observable. We shouldn't have to rely on video from 2013 to make these claims. The video most often shown as proof of Russia's mobile crematories is one of a mobile incinerator, e.g. for trash which can fully combust in minutes.

[nwallin]

> Two hours, for a single body, in a facility the size of a large garage. Just do some napkin math for what that means for the prospect of cremating a single body in something the size of a cement mixer.

You keep saying 'single body'.

Crematoriums in mortuaries operate on the principle that you put one body in and get one set of ashes out. These ashes are then put in a single urn and given to a single family who will grieve their single loved one.

That is not what Russia is using their mobile crematoriums for. You're not going to give the ashes of the deceased to the deceased's family; the deceased's family is all in the same pile of bodies with them. You do not put one body in at a time, you put in as many as will fit. As bodies are reduced, you create more space; you fill that space with more bodies. As ashes are generated, you remove the ashes as they accumulate at the bottom.

You are replacing a low volume batch process with a high volume continuous process. You do not need to wait for the crematorium to heat up or cool down. You do not need to ensure 100% complete combustion. You do not need to worry about disturbing the neighbors with the smell. You do not need particularly high flue temperatures. This will be orders of magnitude more efficient.

You are making a distinction between a mortuary grade crematorium and a mobile incinerator which needn't meet environmental regulatory standards; Russia is not making such a distinction.

[paisawalla]

That's a fascinating exploration of how you would design and run such an operation. Is there evidence that any of this is happening?

The truck that someone posted looks like it could fit two bodies and gets to 1200 degrees, which I guess works with your partial cremation theory (full cremation needs 1800-2000 degrees). It doesn't seem to me that fitting 2 bodies into the incinerator, then adding an additional "get rid of these half-burnt bodies" step, really changes my point much.

[quesera]

> Two hours, for a single body, in a facility the size of a large garage. Just do some napkin math

I think you have mis-extrapolated the logistics.

It takes two hours for a single body, in a single-body crematorium, where the remains will be handled according to protocols developed for legal, social, and sanitary reasons.

In a truck-sized, industrial-efficiency waste disposal incinerator, with military protocols and no laws, I expect you could handle a much higher input rate.

[paisawalla]

Look at the video provided. That thing would maybe fit two bodies at best, and doesn't reach the temperature needed to incinerate a body. I think these claims require a much higher burden of proof than what is being offered here.

[varjag]

The manufacturer's YouTube videos describe that as crematorium, not incinerator. Also not sure if you have a command of Russian, but the video with burning the trash still has the narrator explaining its use for cremation of 'biological waste'. They obviously didn't want showing said waste in demonstration video.

Regarding the waste of resources, these are likely to use lower grade/bunker fuel. And as to priorities, remember Russia is the only country in the world that introduced a national standard for mass graves. In effect since February 1st this year: https://www.mchs.gov.ru/dokumenty/5693

Scroll down to page 13 for pictures if you don't read Russian.

[pvaldes]

Agree. Fuel is not relevant here. They are wasting resources at full speed yet each day of this war. The idea of wasting a few gallons more would not stop then. Not when they were mobilizing yet hundreds of war vehicles and ships for months and are the third largest oil producer in the planet.

They had thrown tens of millions of rubles to the gut and put thousands of Russian soldiers in a grinder meat, just for make an old man happy before die. They just don't care.

[paisawalla]

Can you link to these videos?

I'm not sure what you think these regulations prove. AFAIK Russia is probably the only military of its size engaged in operations that would result in mass field casualties of soldiers, what should they do?

[inglor_cz]

Maybe the mobile crematoria were intended to "disappear" some kidnapped and murdered Ukrainian people (mayors, prominents, intelligentsia), not dead Russian soldiers.

See, no body, no crime. Plus, a nasty dollop of uncertainty for the surviving loved ones and friends.

[arinlen]

> Maybe the mobile crematoria were intended to "disappear" some kidnapped and murdered Ukrainian people (mayors, prominents, intelligentsia), not dead Russian soldiers.

Supposedly the initial goal of Russia's fleet of mobile crematoria was to serve during the post-invasion occupation of Ukraine to disappear elements of the country's local and central leadership that represented a risk to Russia's annexation of the Ukraine.

It just so happened that Russia's plan to steamroll through Ukraine, with their front-line troops carrying parade uniforms and riot control kit and barely any supplies or logistic infrastrucure, didn't really panned out.

Nevertheless, Ukraine claims that Russia is now using their fleet of mobile crematoria to try to hide the full scale of the atrocities in places like Mariupol.

I'd also add that Ukraine's effort to store and preserve the corpses of Russia's own dead soldiers, and be very vocal about returning them either to the deceased soldiers' families or even the Red Cross, is also a way to counter Russia's propensity to thin out their official casualty statistics.

[arinlen]

> It's improbable for the same reasons it was improbable the last time it wasn't true. Secret mass cremations just aren't practical from a logistical standpoint.

Your personal assertion doesn't really hold any water. Mobile crematoriums, or hiding evidence of crimes in general, are not used because they are practical. They are used because it's a possible solution for a pressing problem.

And the "mass" blurb is a misrepresentation of their mission. The purpose of mass crematoriums is not to hide the mass of battlefield casualties, but relative low volume of politically damaging killings, such as quietly disappearing civil and military leadership without trace in a post-invasion/occupation scenario.

In the case of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, it just so happened that the planned 3-day war followed by occupation never materialized, and somehow that is evidence that Russia's usage of mobile crematoriums is improbable?

[lostlogin]

The accusation isn’t that the Russians are hiding their dead, it’s that they are covering up their treatment of civilians.

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/russia-accused-mobi...