Lest we forget: is this the last shred of our mutual respect with Russia?

Each country cares for the war graves of the other - a private agreement with Britain that seems to persist despite current tension

- Richard Palmer & Pjotr Sauer

In graves at Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok, in Russia, lie the bodies of 663 British military personnel. Most of the dead lost their lives in the period just after the first world war, when allied troops were sent to support rightwing White forces in the Russian civil war against the Bolsheviks, while 41 are casualties from the second world war Arctic convoys.

Their resting places have been tended over decades by the Russian military and by private contractors, paid by the UK's Commonwealth War Graves Commission. But after Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, economic sanctions meant Britain could no longer pay for the graves to be maintained.

The two countries appear to have come to a private understanding, however. The commission has continued to maintain 674 Soviet graves in its cemeteries in the UK and around the world and, although it cannot be certain, it believes that the Russians are doing the same for the 663 British military personnel.

"We haven't seen the graves but we think they are still being maintained," said Gareth Hardware, the commission's area director for the UK and northern countries. "We are maintaining their graves in our cemeteries."