Japan has handed to Russia soil from the grave of Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy who many claim changed the course of history during World War 2, as part of a military-patriotic initiative dubbed "Handful of Memory," Russian Deputy Defense Minister Andrey Kartapolov said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th December, 2019) Japan has handed to Russia soil from the grave of Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy who many claim changed the course of history during World War 2, as part of a military-patriotic initiative dubbed "Handful of Memory," Russian Deputy Defense Minister Andrey Kartapolov said on Thursday.The initiative was launched on June 22. The idea entailed filling pouches with soil from the graves of Soviet soldiers from across the world and soldering them inside brass bullets of artillery shells to be put on display in the central church of the Russian armed forces outside Moscow.
"Soil was sent by Japan from the grave of Soviet spy Richard Sorge," Kartapolov said.
According to the military official, more than 40 countries will join the initiative. He thanked them all "for their contribution to the perpetual preservation of the memory of Soviet soldiers who gave their lives for the protection of their homeland."
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier confirmed having received soil from the mass graves of Soviet soldiers from Azerbaijan, China, Finland, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Tajikistan, in addition to samples from 15,000 graves from across Russia.
Richard Sorge was a half-German, half-Russian undercover spy, or rezident, of the Soviet Union. Stationed in Japan since 1933, Sorge developed a Tokyo spy ring, with critical intelligence sourced from both Japanese and German decision-making elites. It was he who convinced then-Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that Tokyo would not join Nazi Germany in attacking Russia, so Stalin could move troops from the eastern front in Siberia westward to repel the Nazi attacks in the European part of Russia close to Moscow.
Sorge's spy ring was busted in 1941. In 1944, he was executed in Tokyo.
