For nearly 15 months, the bodies of fallen soldiers have gradually filled a military cemetery on a hillside in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Now, old, unmarked graves of those killed in previous wars are being excavated to make way for the seemingly endless stream of dead since Russia invaded Ukraine.
On Monday afternoon, half a dozen gravediggers rested in the shade, waiting for the newest coffin to be buried at the cemetery, known as Lychakiv. Smoking cigarettes and shading them from the sun, they lament the devastation Russia has caused. And they say they are bracing for more deaths as fighting becomes more intense during the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Fierce battles are raging on the front lines in the east and south of the country, with Ukraine reporting on Monday that it has recaptured eight settlements in two weeks of “offensive action”. Hanna Malyar, deputy defense minister, wrote on messenger app Telegram that Ukrainian units advanced about 4.3 miles and recaptured an area of about 44 square miles to the south. Among the reclaimed settlements is the village of Piatykhatky, she said, confirming Russian reports over the weekend.
While the recapture of Piatykhatky, in the Zaporizhzhia region, is proof that Ukrainian forces continue to advance, it is not a significant military breakthrough. Like other recaptured villages, this one is small – Piatykhatky means “five houses” – and claims to have cost them Ukrainian lives and advanced Western equipment.
Malyar wrote: “The situation in the east is very difficult right now. “The enemy has reinforced his forces and is conducting an active attack in the direction of Lyman and Kupyan, trying to take the initiative from us.” But she added, “Our military acted bravely in the face of the enemy’s superiority of forces and means and did not allow the enemy to advance.”
A British defense intelligence report said on Sunday that both militaries are suffering significant casualties from the current fighting, and military experts have said that months of gunfights and trenches may well lie ahead.
Like the Ukrainians, the Russians kept the war damage a secret. The Kremlin has not updated the official casualty count since September, when Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu said nearly 6,000 Russians had been killed. Experts considered that number to be low at the time.
Pentagon documents leaked published in April estimated that Ukraine suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, including 17,500 killed in combat, while the Russians had 189,500 to 223,000 casualties, including up to 43,000 killed in combat.
A group of anonymous researchers inside and outside Russia, led by the Mediazona news organization and the Russian-language BBC News service, has compilation Independent statistics on confirmed deaths are updated every two weeks. Last week, the earn points surpassed 25,000 victims, which is also considered an undercount. The team uses open source materials such as obituaries in local newspapers and visits to the cemetery to count. Since the effort began last year, many regions in Russia have banned obituaries intended to disguise phone numbers.
The magnitude of the losses is being felt in communities like Lviv, evident in the growing number of military graves in cemeteries large and small around the country.
On Monday, two men who died hundreds of miles apart were buried side by side. Bohdan Didukh, 34, was killed by a landmine last week in the Zaporizhzhia region of southern Ukraine, where the first phases of the Ukrainian counter-offensive began. Three days later, Oleh Didukh, 52, died of a heart attack while serving in an air defense unit in the western part of the country.
Men of the same surname but who had never known each other in their lives, were united in death. They were honored side by side at a joint funeral in Lviv. Their families were deeply saddened as grave diggers shoveled dirt over their coffins.
At a funeral service in a Greek Catholic church in central Lviv, the air was filled with fragrance. The priest said he assumed the two were father and son because of their names and ages. He said their families were sharing their grief.
After the church service, the coffins were loaded onto trucks and transported to the central square, where a single trumpeter played. After that, the group went to the cemetery.
Along the way, people pause to pay their respects. A young girl stood next to her father, holding a small brown shopping bag, looking straight ahead as the coffins passed. Some bystanders fell to their knees.
At the cemetery, Olena Didukh, the wife of Bohdan Didukh, fainted from grief and the afternoon sun. Her sister held her steady, wrapping her arms around her back. A few feet away, Oleh Didukh’s family planted yellow and blue flowers, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, on his grave.
Funerals for fallen soldiers have become a grim routine in Lviv. Since last year, soldiers who died in battle have been laid to rest in countless funerals like those in Lviv, in all parts of the country.
And it is not uncommon for several military funerals to be held simultaneously in Lviv. One of the harsh realities of the war in Russia is that even in a city far from where the fighting is taking place, soldiers killed on the front lines are still able to return to their homeland, sometimes in groups and rest at the same time. It is considered an effective way as the dead keep coming.
Along this hillside on a glorious afternoon, mourners tend the graves of loved ones buried here for weeks, months, or more than a year.
Mariia Kovalska’s son, Ivan, was killed nine months ago in Kramatorsk, in the eastern Donetsk region. He was 30 years old, with a round face and blue eyes like his mother’s, she proudly explained.
“What is it all for?” she asked, pain evident in her voice. “The best of the best are dead. He graduated from university. He had a diploma with honors. Why did he die?”
Kateryna Havrylenko, 50, who maintains the city’s graves, loads dirt in a wheelbarrow. She said there are funerals here almost every day.
“With the counterattack, many young men and women will be killed,” she said. “Words cannot describe how difficult it is. Very, very difficult. Even though I’m a stranger, I’m someone’s child, just like I have a child.”
At the beginning of the war in Russia, there was a small group of freshly dug graves on the hillside in part of the cemetery. Now, nearly 500 soldiers have been buried here in plots that fill half a hillside, she said, and there will be more.
At the top of the cemetery, city officials have begun excavating the unmarked graves of long-buried World War I soldiers, young men who died. at the beginning of the last century to make way for those who have now fallen in this war.
“It’s hard to think – last summer, there were very few,” Havrylenko said. “And now there are many.” She added with a distant look, “Until the war is over, how many more will be left?”
Report contributed by Neil MacFarquhar from Stockholm, Cassandra Vinograd And Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London, and Daria Mitiuk from Lviv, Ukraine.
