"It's better here," he says, patting Vorobiov's grave with his shovel. "Our heroes deserve a proper resting place."īut he, his family's only breadwinner, wouldn't want to be fighting alongside them. "What we are doing is for the greater good," Itsenko says. And tomorrow, there will be another three funerals. There will be two more funerals in the next hour. "Got to hurry," says Itsenko, wiping the sweat from his brow. He speaks on the condition his last name be withheld, citing Ukrainian military protocols for active soldiers.Īs mourners bid their last farewell and toss earth into Romanenko's grave, Itsenko and Kuznetsov still have not finished filling the first. "He went too soon," says Valery, sighing deeply. Undertakers lower the coffin of Ukrainian serviceman Andrii Romanenko at the Kryvyi Rih cemetery in eastern Ukraine, April 24, 2023. A fellow serviceman, Valery, says they had served together in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk but parted ways in December. Romanenko died when he was hit by a mortar defending the city of Bakhmut. The priest reads the rites, and the wailing starts again. The family of Andrii Romanenko, 31, erects a tent to protect the coffin from the afternoon sun. While the two young men are still working to fill the first grave, another funeral is starting. Without any options, he didn't need to think twice. Itsenko lost his job when the war broke out, and learned the local cemetery needed diggers. There were no jobs, and he needed the money, he said finally. "If it's so good, then why am I doing this?" he asked, panting as he shoveled dirt into Vorobiov's grave. A good degree, he was told by his teachers. He has a university degree in technology. Kuznetsov never imagined he would be a gravedigger. He didn't even know the guy, he reflected. He couldn't hold back his anguish in the middle of that crowd. He isn't affected most of the time because they are strangers.īut once, he was asked to help carry the coffin because there weren't enough pallbearers. The outpouring of grief is normal, Kuznetsov said. Then they can begin the work of filling Vorobiov's grave. Relatives mourn next to the coffin of Ukrainian serviceman Andrii Vorobiov at the Kryvyi Rih cemetery in eastern Ukraine, April 24, 2023.īetween tears and screams, Itsenko and Kuznetsov wait for the last handful of dirt to be tossed onto the lowered coffin. His daughter holds his medals, won for acts of bravery in the battlefield. When the priest is done reciting the funeral rites, Vorobiov's wife throws her hands over his coffin and wails. Vorobiov died in an aerial bomb attack in Bakmut, leaving behind three children. The deceased's fellow servicemen weep as the coffin, draped in the yellow and blue of the national flag, is placed on the gravel. The family of Andrii Vorobiov, 51, weep as they enter the premises. Shovels to the side, they peer from under baseball caps as the familiar scene, now a routine, unfolds. In the process, many Ukrainian servicemen have died.Īt 11 a.m., when the first coffin arrives, the two men lean back, exhausted, under the late morning sun. Ukrainian forces in the city are surrounded from three directions by advancing Russian invaders and are determined to hold on to the city to deprive Moscow of any territorial victories. Many soldiers have died fighting in Bakhmut, in what has become the war's longest battle, and among the deadliest. Estimates for Moscow's war dead and wounded are double that as Ukrainian military officials report Russia is using wave tactics to exhaust resources and deplete their morale. Western officials estimate there have been at least 100,000 Ukrainians soldiers killed or wounded since Russia's full-scale invasion began last year. The war's death toll is kept a closely guarded secret by government and military officials, but it can be measured in other ways: through the long, working hours of the two young men, the repetitive rhythm of shovels and spades scooping up soil, the daily processions of weeping mourners. In Ukraine, even the business of death has become routine as funerals are held for soldiers across the country almost every day, at times multiple times a day. Relatives mourn over new graves of Ukrainian soldiers killed in recent battles as national and military units flags wave in a military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, April 23, 2023.
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