For Yulia Laputina, Ukraine’s Minister of Veterans Affairs, a visit to Arlington National Cemetery was a deeply moving experience.
“I really appreciated this incredible memorializing and respect for the people who defended your country,” Laputina, who is a veteran herself, told CNN Thursday.
Ukraine plans to draw inspiration from Arlington as the country works to create its own version of a memorial and military cemetery in its capital city of Kyiv, she said.
“It will be the memorial not only for those people who will be buried there from the battles of Russian-Ukrainian war, for the heroes, but also it will be the memorial for all of the defenders of our country when Ukraine was fighting for the independence in different historical periods,” she said.
On Thursday, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, announced that the city council had “started the procedure for establishing the National Military Memorial Cemetery,” and had allocated land for its creation. According to his post on Facebook, the cemetery is nearly 250 acres.
Ukraine’s creation of a military cemetery is just one initiative that the war-torn nation plans to undertake to honor and support its veterans – a population which will grow immensely due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. There are expected to be around four million veterans and family members by the time the war comes to an end, Laputina said.
About 80% of the half million veterans that were registered with the veterans affairs office when the most recent conflict began have gone back to the battlefield, she told CNN.
The minister came to Washington, DC, to discuss best practices and to urge specific funding from the US government to help support her office’s efforts.
The United States has given billions of dollars in direct…
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