WORLD

DNA tests and stranded bodies: Ukraine’s struggle to name its dead

Morgue staff work with members of On The Shield, an organization tasked with collecting bodies of killed soldiers, at a morgue in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on March 29. Ukraine struggles to name its dead; families of some soldiers say they have spent months trying to get official confirmation of their loved one’s death, adding to their anguish. | Nicole Tung / The New York Times

By Maria Varenikova
The New York Times

May 6, 2024

KYIV –

The bodies of the two Ukrainian soldiers lay motionless in a field for months. Around them were bloodstains and their rifles.

The soldiers’ relatives identified their bodies from aerial footage gathered by drone. Although excruciating to watch, it seemed clear: The two men — Pvt. Serhiy Matsiuk and Pvt. Andriy Zaretsky — were dead. Yet more than four months later, the Ukrainian military still lists them as missing, even though subsequent drone footage provided by a fellow soldier weeks later showed them still lying there.

"I want to have his grave, where I can come and cry all this out properly,” said Zaretsky’s wife, Anastasia, 31, who has been looking for closure since he was killed in November in the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine’s south.