The Kyiv City Council allocated the land and thus basically started the procedure of creating the National Military Memorial Cemetery in Bykivnia.

Vitaliy Klychko, Head of the Kyiv City State Administration, announced this.

The state is responsible for establishing a military cemetery, and the government determined the location.

“The capital is ready to contribute to the creation of a memorial to our heroes in all possible ways. Previously, we supported the government’s proposal to create a military cemetery on Lysa Hora. But it did not find public support. Therefore, now we are discussing Bykivnia,” Klitschko said.

He also added that 8 hectares of land in this area belong to the city of Kyiv. Approximately 90 hectares nearby are state-owned land.

The area of the National Military Memorial Cemetery reaches almost 100 hectares.

Recently, Maksym Kushnir, Director of the Department of Civil Identity and Veteran Development of the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, shared that the project of the National Military Memorial Cemetery provides for the placement of 50,000 burials, excluding the Columbarium.

He also reported that the Ministry studied about ten possible sites for the location of the Memorial Cemetery and settled on the Bykivnia graves.

In May of last year, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a law regulating the creation of a National Military Memorial Cemetery.

The beneficiary of its construction is the central body of the executive power, which ensures the development and implementation of state policy in the field of social protection of war veterans. The construction is carried out at the expense of the state budget.

The procedure to organize burials and reburials on the territory of the National Military Memorial Cemetery is determined by the Cabinet of Ministers.

Expenses for the burial of the dead in the territory of the National Military Memorial Cemetery are financed by the state budget.

The Cabinet of Ministers approves a sample of burial structures and memorial plaques to be installed on the territory of the National Military Memorial Cemetery.

The “Bykivnia Graves” National Historic Memorial is the largest burial place of victims of mass political repressions of 1937-1941 in Ukraine. It is located in the Dnipro district of Kyiv, 1.5 km away from the former village of Bykivnia. The territory of the reserve is almost 239 hectares and is the largest burial place of victims of Stalinist repressions in Ukraine.