BEIJING, June 8. /TASS/. The spring-summer stage of the first joint Russian-Chinese search operation devoted to perpetuating the memory of Soviet servicemen has ended in North-Eastern China on Monday.
The remains discovered during the operation dubbed "Memory Watch. China - 2015" were handed over to the Chinese side. The solemn burial ceremony will take place on 2 September 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, in the city of Mudanjiang in China’s south.
The search works were conducted in the Heilongjiang province, where the Red Army fought with the Japanese military in August 1945. "We plan to continue works of the summer-autumn stage already in August," the head of the Russian expedition Sergey Orlov told TASS. "Apart from that, we will start discussing with our Chinese colleagues the issue of setting up a permanent search expedition and determining the plan for the next few years," Orlov added.
This is the first and yet the only search expedition on the Chinese territory. The unique experience received over the course of the search works will be used in future expeditions. Seventeen Russian rescue workers from the Far Eastern Amur region and 15 Chinese rescuers took part in the expedition.
The search expedition is part of joint Russia-Chinese celebrations of the 70th anniversary of Victory over German Nazism and Japanese militarism.