Agence France-Presse, Russia has declassified the army and navy archives of World War II, officials said Thursday, voicing hope that the documents will dispel some of the wilder theories and provide a more exact toll of Russia’s casualties in the war.
“Declassified were documents from the defense ministry’s central archive, the central navy archive, medical archive and the defense ministry’s medical museum,” some four million total, said the chief of Russian defense ministry’s archive service, Col. Sergei Ilyenkov.
Only documents concerning military courts and tribunals, as well as coded telegrams, would remain classified, Ilyenkov said as quoted by Interfax, adding however that telegrams could be declassified but for the codes.
Ilyenkov voiced hope that the archives would help defeat some of the wilder theories, such as the one which accuses the Soviet Union of attacking Nazi Germany, and clarify the toll of army casualties.
“As of now, it is set at 8.6 million servicemen, with the total toll at 26.6 million,” he said.
