Vitaly Votanovsky flees Russia after documenting a Wagner cemetery

A Russian activist who revealed details of the burials of Wagner mercenaries killed in Ukraine has left Russia. 

Vitaly Votanovsky, who began documenting the deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine by monitoring graveyards in his home region, fled the country on 4 April after receiving numerous death threats. 

He spoke to the BBC from the Armenian capital Yerevan. 

The former Russian army officer had gone out to protest that day in clothes emblazoned with the words "No to Putin!" and "No to the war!" 

Photos of Vitaly in his outfit are included in official court documents which Vitaly showed to the BBC.

"Because of that coat I got 20 days in jail!" he says.

In Krasnodar, Vitaly is known not for street protests, but for documenting graves. 

He was the first person to discover a now-infamous cemetery in the small village of Bakinskaya in Krasnodar Region, since known as the Wagner cemetery. 

This is where the notoriously brutal mercenary group buries many of its dead from Ukraine - men who either have no relatives or whose bodies are unclaimed. 

It has grown from a small village graveyard into an enormous cemetery, with several new zones to accommodate the ever-increasing number of dead. Security guards now patrol the facility.

He painstakingly recorded the names and details of all the graves he found. 

By the time he fled Russia earlier this month, his database contained over 1,300 names - which included the dead from the Krasnodar Region only. 

Vitaly identified the graves of the men who had died in the war - as opposed to regular, civilian deaths - by asking local people, as well as studying the wreaths and photos on the graves. 

In December 2022, the activist went to Bakinskaya to photograph graves of regular soldiers. 

But while there, cemetery workers told Vitaly and his colleague that they were burying Wagner mercenaries killed in battle.