Beside the coffin of the body of his son Yuriy Sikirisky, a volunteer soldier in the defense of Ukrainian territory and the oldest of the three at 52, who was killed in action, his 78-year-old mother Uliana was overcome with grief, bending over again and again to put her face against the polished wood.

　　Funeral services were held on June 22, 2023 for a Ukrainian soldier who was killed in action near Bakhmut, a hard-fought battleground during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Beside the coffin of the body of his son Yuriy Sikyrynsky (52 years old), a volunteer soldier in the defense of Ukrainian territory and the oldest of the three, who was killed in action, his 78-year-old mother Uliana (78) was overcome with grief and bent down again and again to put her face against the polished wood The family's grief was so great that they had to leave the house.

Warning: Uliana rests her head on the casket of her son. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

 

　　The funeral was held on June 22 at St. Peter and Paul Garrison Church in Lviv, Ukraine, where four coffins were carried by mourners down a cobblestone path, with silent mourners lining up to pay their respects. Inside the church, in a dimly lit echo, four names were chanted: four new graves of the dead, hewn from the clay-like earth in a cemetery that pushed the old dead aside. The Lichakiv cemetery, an 18th-century necropolis on the outskirts of the city, was filled with the dead of all ages; since April 2022, some 417 additional rows of graves have been added.

　 The Ukrainian army's counter-offensive against the Russian invasion cost both sides dearly. The number of casualties was not made public, the fighting did not end quickly, and the four dead were, of course, but a drop in the ocean. It is a battle for the survival of the nation, a battle from which there is no escape and no end in sight.

 　Lviv, the capital of Lviv Oblast in western Ukraine, has changed rulers over the centuries. An outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it later became part of neighboring Poland, came under Soviet rule after World War II, and became independent as Ukraine in 1991. Troops from Lviv were deployed to southern and eastern Ukraine, where the fighting was most intense. Bodies of soldiers killed in distant battles took days, weeks, or months to return home. Wounded bodies were identified through DNA testing. Transport of corpses was delayed in remote areas and in areas of heavy fighting. In order to recover more bodies, there was a regular exchange of corpses between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

    Funeral services for Ukrainian soldiers Dmytro Lebediev and Stanislav Shmorgun, who were killed in the Battle of Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, were held at the St. Peter and Paul Garrison Church in Lviv. Ukrainian mourners offered their condolences to the Ukrainian soldiers killed in action.  

 

Warning: Mourners pay their respects to soldiers Dmytro Lebediev and Stanislav Shmorgun, both of whom were killed near Bakhmut. The funeral was held at Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church in Lviv. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)