Search continues for missing WW2 soldiers

Russian volunteers have pledged to continue their search for the bodies of hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers which never been found.

In the southern city of Krasnodar, people give up their time every week help to look for the remains of the fallen from World War Two, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, no matter what side they fought on.

In the fierce battle for the north Caucasus, the Nazis were trying to gain over the region's oil wells, sea ports and factories. Operation Edelweiss eventually failed but the Soviet Army suffered heavy losses. In almost every town in the region there is a war memorial with the names of those who died in the battle.

Red Army private Mikhail Lyogky was buried at the Great Patriotic War memorial near Krasnodar 63 years after he was killed on the battlefield. Last April, Mikhail's remains were found in woods near the town of Krimsk. The volunteer search party was able to identify the 18-year-old soldier by the initials engraved on his spoon.

With the help of local journalists they managed to track down Mikhail's sister Anna. The woman burst into tears. The pain of her loss remains as strong now as it was back then.

Many other Krasnodar families have searched for their loved ones for years. Nina Kondra's father sent his last letter from the frontline in 1943. Later the authorities notified the family that he was missing in action.

Nina and her sister wrote letter after letter to the authorities in the hope of finding an answer. More than six decades later they eventually found their father's name in one of the government lists that were recently declassified. It turned out he was in hospital and died of wounds.

Unlike Nina, Lydia Rogoza still cannot find her father's resting place. She barely remembers how he looked. She says that after the war, she and her young friends were asking every soldier they saw one question.

“Are you our father?” we used to ask them. Then soldiers would usually pick the smaller kids up and hug them and start crying. “No,” they'd say, “I'm not your father.”

Recently the Russia defence ministry published lists of soldiers at the memorial website. In a country where millions died in the war against the Nazis and so many heroes are still missing, for some families it could provide the key to solving the mystery of just what happened to their loved ones.