MOSCOW, November 13 /TASS/. Forty-six acts of vandalism have been committed against Soviet and Russian war memorials in foreign countries, predominantly Ukraine and the Baltic States, in 2014, Russian Deputy Defense Minister General Dmitry Bulgakov told TASS on Thursday.

“The Russian Defense Ministry has 7 offices to look after military cemeteries abroad. They are located in Hungary, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and China,” Bulgakov said.

“Their staff has issued certificates to more than 150 unregistered war graves; about 290 newly found burial places are being certified; the fate of 11,270 Soviet soldiers and officers has been established and more than 30 memorials have been repaired and renovated,” Bulgakov said adding that vandals have been posing a serious problem for that work in foreign countries in recent years.

Russia, the general said, has resumed the activities of an inter-departmental commission for prisoners of war, military internees and missing persons. Colonel-General Valery Vostrotin, Hero of the USSR, has been appointed to head the Russian commission as well as the Russian part of the US-Russian Joint Commission on Prisoners of War and Missing in Action at the Russian Defense Ministry’s request.

The Russian Defence Ministry is planning to open an office in the United States as part of the joint commission’s work.