In Ukraine's retaken battlefields, soldiers recover bodies
Only now are Ukrainian soldiers able to retrieve the bodies of dead soldiers from a region near the Russian border that was the scene of fierce fighting for months over the summer
PRUDYANKA, Ukraine (AP) — The four soldiers lay in the grass, sleeping bags and cans of food, some opened, scattered around them. Beneath nearby trees, their cars were smashed and torn by shrapnel. The men had been dead for months.
This region of rolling fields and woodland near the Russian border was the site of fierce battles for months during the summer. Only now, after Ukrainian forces retook the area and pushed Russian troops back across the border in a blistering counteroffensive, has the retrieval of bodies scattered across the battlefield been possible.
The area was of strategic importance as its high ground is among the positions where Russian artillery could easily strike Kharkiv, Ukraine’s hard-hit second-largest city, said Col. Vitalii Shum, deputy commander of the 3rd Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard, whose team has been collecting the battlefield dead — both Ukrainian and Russian — for days.
For the soldiers’ families, news of the body recovery will be final, incontrovertible confirmation that their son, brother, father or husband will not be coming home.
