The remains of a Red Army officer buried by a Soviet-era memorial in Tallinn and returned to Russia, following an exhumation in early May, were reburied Saturday.

The remains of Captain Alexei Bryantsev, killed in action in September 1944, were passed to his son, Viktor, after DNA tests confirmed his identity.

Bryantsev was reburied in the town of Gukovo, the Rostov region (southern Russia).

Bryantsev and twelve other Red Army personnel were laid to rest in the grave in central Tallinn towards the end of WWII. A Bronze Soldier monument was erected by it to commemorate their sacrifice in liberating Estonia from Nazi Germany.

The dismantling of the monument and its relocation to a cemetery on the outskirts of the city on April 27 triggered protests in Estonia and across Russia. In Moscow, Russian officials called the move an "act of blasphemy," and street protests left one person was killed and tens injured.

Estonia was annexed to the USSR after WWII and did not regain its independence until the early 1990s, so for many in the Baltic country, the Bronze Soldier memorial was a painful reminder of the Soviet "occupation."
sections: Society