KIEV, October 22. /TASS/. The authorities of the Ukrainian city of Lvov will not hand over to Russia the remains of the Soviet Union’s WWII intelligence officer, Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov, in defiance of a ruling pronounced by a cassation administrative court, the city’s Mayor, Andrei Sadovoi, said on Friday.

The Cassation Administrative Court of Ukraine’s Supreme Court on September 15 obliged the Executive of the Lvov City Council to allow Nikolai Kuznetsov’s relatives rebury his remains from a grave on Glory Hill in Lvov at a military memorial cemetery in Yekaterinburg. The verdict is final and not open to appeal. On Friday, the Executive of the Lvov City Council had to make a decision to enforce the verdict of the higher instance court, but the city authorities refused to comply with the court ruling.

The idea of reburying the remains of the legendary Soviet intelligence officer began in 2000, when Yekaterinburg’s veterans addressed the city of Lvov with a request. A Russian delegation visited Lvov in 2007, but its request for Kuznetsov’s remains was turned down. Later in the same year Kuznetsov’s relative Margarita Bryukhanova made a similar request. Litigations continued up to September 2021. The Cassation Administrative Court of Ukraine’s Supreme Court sustained the plaintiff’s request.

Nikolai Kuznetsov died at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists on March 9, 1944. Together with his two comrades he was ambushed in the village of Boratin, the Lvov Region. His remains were found in 1959 in the woods near the place where he was killed. In 1960, he was buried on Lvov’s Glory Hill with military honors. The current Ukrainian authorities have been unable to maintain his grave in a proper condition. From time to time it is attacked by vandals. In 2019, the bronze bas-relief was stolen from the tombstone.