On August 6, 1945, just before the end of World War II, this B-29 bomber dropped and detonated the world's first atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. It was named Enola Gay after the mother of its pilot, Paul Tibbets.It is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, a satellite facility of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

 

On August 1, 2003, African immigrants lay drowned on the beaches of Fuerteventura, the closest island to the African coast in the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco.

　　On August 1, 2003, African immigrants lay drowned on the shores of Fuerteventura, one of the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco; on July 31, six African immigrants drowned when their flimsy boat ran aground, and 15 others were lost when their boat capsized six miles offshore. The other 15 were lost after their boat capsized six miles offshore. Fuerteventura is the closest of the Canary Islands to the African coast. Human traffickers routinely traveled to this coast from southern Morocco's landing sites to pack passenger migrants into overloaded boats.

　　Spain's Interior Ministry announced that it had found the bodies of 11 migrants who swam from Morocco to the Spanish coast and drowned. The bodies were found on the Tarajal beach in Ceuta, according to officials. The African migrants had attempted to swim from the Moroccan coast to Spain. Spanish media and human rights groups reported that police opened fire on the African migrants as they swam in the sea. The security guard general claimed that the security forces fired into the air, stating that the officers used rubber bullets to stop the African migrants.

　Security forces officers fired rubber bullets, blanks, and tear gas shells to stop African immigrants from swimming to Talaha Beach in Ceuta, where 12 of them drowned. The firing prevented migrants in the water from reaching land, including those clinging to unstable floats. First the government representative, then the head of the security forces denied it. The Minister of the Interior admitted in Parliament that riot gear was in fact used at sea to quell the riots. The intention was to terrorize the migrants and force them to swim back to the Moroccan coast. Rubber bullets, blanks that sounded exactly like real bullets, and people who desperately searched the beaches drowned in fear and panic.

　Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa aimed to reach Europe. Many migrants stayed at campsites near the Moroccan-Algerian border. Upon arrival in Morocco, they were subjected to abuses without security. Moroccan police documented cases where migrants were beaten, deprived of what little property they had, burned down shelters, and expelled from Morocco. According to the migrants' statements, abuse of sub-Saharan Africans is common in Morocco. The introduction of the Moroccan Immigration Law (Law 2002-2003) was in response to EU pressure for tighter immigration controls in Morocco.

 

A Soviet POW was driven by guards to commit suicide at the barbed wire electric fence of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, Nazi Germany, in September-October 1942.

　　Soviet prisoners of war committed suicide at the barbed wire electric fence of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Nazi Germany's Austria in September-October 1942. Some prisoners were annotated by guards for attempting to escape and driven into the high-tension wire fence; on May 5, 1945, troops of the U.S. 11th Armored Division liberated the Mauthausen camp; 15,000 bodies were interred in a mass grave; the camp was closed for the first time in 1945. Due to disease and starvation, 3,000 prisoners died in the weeks following liberation.

　Mauthausen concentration camp, located 20 km from the Austrian city of Linz, was founded on August 8, 1938, and liberated by American troops on May 5, 1945. The Mauthausen camp main camp consisted of 32 barracks surrounded by barbed wire, high stone walls, and watchtowers. Barbed wire surrounded the fields to the north and west to accommodate the vast numbers of prisoners pouring into the camp. Mainly Hungarian Jews and Russian soldiers were left out in the open all year round.

　The SS's preferred method of killing during the winter season was to gather a group of prisoners in a garage yard and have them undress. The guards then poured water on the group and froze them to death. This was quite effective when winter temperatures were usually around minus 10 degrees Celsius. Food rations for inmates were cut in half, and sick and weak inmates were sent into the woods to starve to death. All sick and weak inmates were killed with poison gas. The gas chambers were located in Hartheim, 10 kilometers from Linz.

On May 14, 2025, a child was killed by an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Palestine. Families mourned the children killed in the Israeli airstrike.

　　On May 14, 2025, an Israeli airstrike killed a child in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip, Palestine. Palestinian families mourned the children killed in the Israeli airstrike. Mourners knelt next to the bodies, which were wrapped in a bloodstained white shroud, and a woman shed tears. According to the local Gaza Strip hospital, 48 people, including 22 children of Palestinian descent, were killed in the May 14 airstrike.

　　Israeli airstrikes hit northern and southern Gaza on May 14, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 13 that Israel would not stop its attacks in the Palestinian territories before Hamas was defeated, even if Hamas released hostages. It happened on May 14, a day after the Palestinian armed group Hamas released its Israeli-American hostages on May 13.

　　Late in the evening of May 13, the Israeli military warned residents of Jabaliya to evacuate. In Jabaliya, rescuers used only the light of cell phone cameras and hand tools to break through collapsed concrete slabs and remove the bodies of several slain children. The war in Gaza began in 2023 when militias led by Hamas killed 1,200 people in an incursion into southern Israel. Israeli retaliatory attacks have killed more than 52,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

Warning: Palestinians mourn children from their families who were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. According to local hospitals, the strikes killed 48 people, including 22 children. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

On September 14, 1941, during World War II, an undertaker dropped a dead Jewish body into a deep hole dug in a cemetery in the ghetto on Okopowa Street in Warsaw, Poland.

      On September 14, 1941, during World War II, an undertaker dropped a dead Jewish body into a deep hole dug in a cemetery in the ghetto on Okopowa Street in Warsaw, Poland.An undertaker from the M.B. Pinkiert Funeral Home unloaded the body from a cart in the mass grave at the Warsaw Ghetto Cemetery. As soon as the body cart was emptied, the bodies returned. Like household trash dumped in a ditch, the corpses of people who had lived only moments before were dumped in their graves before my very eyes." Terrible things are happening in the cemetery," the description stated.

　  In 1941, a 43-year-old German soldier named Heinrich Jöst (Heinrich Jöst) of the Luftwaffe Supply Corps took more than 150 photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto over several days. Other photos of Warsaw and his military career were laid out in a handsome leather-bound album labeled “The Warsaw Ghetto, a cultural document for Adolf Hitler.” Of the album's 109 photographs, 56 were of the ghetto. Some of the photos were taken from cars, or soldiers came to the ghetto on a cold but sunny day in a car, got out of the car somewhere in the ghetto, and walked around on foot. What we do not know the exact date of the photos, we can guess as 1941. Taken outdoors, they depict all the suffering and difficult conditions in the ghetto. Many of the photographs show people lying in the streets, children begging, and the misery that covered the streets of the ghetto.

　Heinrich Jöst survived World War II. For decades, he never said a word to anyone about his collection of photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto, until 1982, when he broke his silence and showed them to Günter Schwarberg of Stern magazine. Some of them were published in the photo book “In the Warsaw Ghetto” (Im Ghetto von Warschau).

During the Vietnam War, in 1965, when U.S. Marine Corps troops were stationed in Tam Quang, Binh Dinh Province, in the south-central coastal region of South Vietnam, the Vietnam Liberation Front (Viet Cong) launched a night raid, resulting in fierce fighting that left numerous casualties on both sides.

 　During the Vietnam War, in 1965, when U.S. Marine Corps troops were stationed in Tam Quan, Binh Dinh Province, in the southern central coastal region of South Vietnam, the Vietnam Liberation Front (Viet Cong) launched a nighttime raid. The fierce battle resulted in numerous casualties on both sides. Tam Quan was located in the northern part of Binh Dinh Province.

　　Binh Dinh Province was a traditional stronghold of the Communist Party and the VC.In 1965, the U.S. military rapidly increased its military presence in South Vietnam. The communist-led Viet Cong (VC) had gained significant influence over the rural population in Vietnam. The South Vietnamese government found itself at a disadvantage in the Vietnam War. North Vietnam also rapidly increased the infiltration of personnel and supplies to counter the South Vietnamese and U.S. forces. North Vietnam and the VC sought to unify Vietnam.

　　In February 1965, the VC overpowered South Vietnamese Army units at their base in Gia Hoi, Binh Dinh Province. A VC battalion destroyed the South Vietnamese Army in the village of Duong Liu, 13 km north of the town of Phu My. The South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) suffered 333 casualties.The VC continued to attack small garrisons, villages, and district towns of the 2nd Army Corps. 

　　In September 1965, the 7th Battalion of the 2nd Marine Regiment of the U.S. Army used phosgene (CN gas) against the Viet Cong in the village of Vinh Quang in Binh Dinh Province, South Vietnam. Twenty-six VC and 35 Vietnamese civilians were killed.In October 1965, the U.S. Air Force mistakenly attacked the village of De Duc in Binh Dinh Province near Bon Son, killing 48 Vietnamese civilians.

ベトナム戦争にて、1965年に南ベトナム南中部沿岸地方のビンディン省のタムクアンにアメリカ軍の海兵隊が駐屯している時に、ベトナム解放戦線(ベトコン)が夜襲をした。その激戦によって、両軍に多数の死傷者を伴った。タムクアンは、ビンディン省の北部に位置した。

　ビンディン省は伝統的な共産党とVCの拠点だった。1965年アメリカ軍は、南ベトナムで急速に軍備を増強した。共産主義者が支配するベトコン（VC）が、ベトナム国内の農村部で住民の多くに影響力を持った。南ベトナム政府がベトナム戦争に劣勢になった。北ベトナムも、南ベトナム軍とアメリカ軍に対抗するため、人員と物資の浸透を急速に増強した。北ベトナムとVCは、ベトナム国内を統合しようとした。

　1965年2月にビンディン省では、VCがギア・フーの拠点で南ベトナム軍部隊を制圧した。VC大隊は、フミー地区町から北へ13kmのデュオン・リウ集落で、南ベナム軍を壊滅した。南ベトナム軍ARVNの犠牲は、333人の戦死者を伴った。VCは引き続き第2軍団の小さな駐屯地、集落、地区の町を攻撃した。

　1965年9月には、アメリカ軍第2海兵連隊第7大隊が、南ベトナムのビンディン省ヴィンクアン村で、ベトコンに対してフェナシルクロリド（CNガス)の毒ガスを使用した。VC26人と民間ベトナム人35人が死亡した。1965年10月にはアメリカ空軍が、ボンソン近郊のビンディン省の村デ・ドゥックを誤って攻撃し、民間ベトナム人48人が死亡した。

After a tank battle at Vireuil-Bocage, British tank crew members were killed by German forces. British soldiers who were defeated by German forces died beside their vehicles.

    During World War II, in the village of Vire-sur-Mer in the southwestern part of France, British tank crew members were killed by German forces following a tank battle. The British soldiers, whose vehicles had been destroyed by German forces, were killed alongside their tanks. The bodies of the British tank crew members were photographed on June 17, 1944.

   The Battle of Vireule-Bocage (June 13, 1944) was a major engagement during World War II, following the Normandy landings. German forces nearly annihilated British units, forcing them to retreat. It was the first large-scale battle to take place after the capture of Caen on D-Day. On June 12, the British Army launched an operation to attack German forces in Caen from the flank by capturing the Villers-Bocage area, where the German Army had established a strong defensive line. During the night of June 12–13, British forces reached Livry through this gap.On the morning of June 13, British forces advanced 8 kilometers east from Livry to Vireuil-Bocage. 

When the German forces attacked, the British did not anticipate the attack along the main road. The German forces detected the British advance and, on June 12, German tank units arrived in the Normandy region and were deployed east of Vireuil-Bocage.On the morning of June 13, Michael Wittmann, who would become a hero of the German SS, conducted reconnaissance of the British advance with his tank unit. He approached Villers-Bocage at point 213 east of the British vanguard.

    Wittmann's tank alone quickly destroyed three British tanks. The German tanks advanced west along the main road and destroyed the British tanks at the western end of the street. The Germans destroyed the remaining British tanks, half-tracks, grenade launchers, and lorries. With infantry support, many British soldiers were killed or captured. Wittmann returned to the village and charged into a British ambush, losing all his tanks. The German forces were ordered to sweep the town, resulting in fierce fighting where both sides lost tanks. By late afternoon on June 13, the British forces withdrew from Villers-Bocage. British casualties were extremely heavy, with 62 killed and 100 captured.

On July 18, 1944, American soldiers searched for German soldiers hiding in the bushes in Saint-Lô, France. The bodies of German soldiers killed by American soldiers lay sprawled on the ground.

 　During the Western Front of World War II, on July 18, 1944, American soldiers searched for German soldiers hiding in the bushes in Saint-Lô, France. The body of a German soldier killed by American soldiers lay sprawled in the bushes.

　　Saint-Lô is a city located in the Normandy region of western France. Allied forces had fought hard to gain a foothold on the bloody beaches of Normandy, France, during the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.On June 15, 1944, Allied paratroopers were dropped into the area with the German positions northeast of Saint-Lô as their target. After fierce fighting, the Allies liberated Saint-Lô. Many of the main roads in Normandy intersect at Saint-Lô. By capturing Saint-Lô, the Allies gained access to all of Normandy and secured the route for their advance toward Paris.

　　The Battle of Saint-Lô was one of three conflicts that comprised the “Battle of the Fens,” which took place from July 7 to 19, 1944, just before Operation Cobra. Saint-Lô had fallen to German forces in 1940. After the Normandy invasion, the city served as a strategic crossroads, making it a target for the Americans.American artillery fire caused extensive damage, with up to 95% of the city destroyed. The high number of casualties led to the city being dubbed the “Capital of Ruins.” Over 11,000 American soldiers were killed, with over 3,000 fatalities. German casualties are unknown. Among the civilian population of Saint-Lô, 352 people lost their lives.

The Russo-Japanese War ended on March 10, 1905, with the Battle of Mukden. The village in the distance on the right is Li Guanbao, and the next day, the bodies of Russian soldiers lay scattered to the right of the defensive fence, while the bodies of many Japanese soldiers lay scattered to the left.

　　The Battle of Mukden, which erupted on February 21, 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, concluded on March 10, 1905, with the Japanese army occupying Mukden. The 33rd Regiment of the Japanese Army's 2nd Infantry Division engaged in fierce combat with Russian forces near the three houses south of Li Guanbao.On March 11, following the conclusion of the battle, the Japanese Army suffered heavy casualties, including the death of Lieutenant Colonel Yoshikawa, commander of the 33rd Regiment. The village in the distance to the right was Li Guanbao, with the bodies of Russian soldiers lying to the right of the defensive barriers and the bodies of numerous Japanese soldiers to the left. The barren plains of Fengtian in China were littered with the remains of soldiers from both sides on March 11.

　　The Russian army gradually reinforced its troops with reinforcements from Russia proper, increasing its total strength to 320,000 soldiers. The Japanese army, even when combined with the 3rd Army, had a total strength of 250,000 soldiers, which was the limit of Japan's mobilization capabilities at the time. The Japanese army, which had failed to decide the outcome in the Battle of Liaoyang, decided on an attack plan on January 22 to engage in a decisive battle that would finally end the conflict.

　　On March 1, the Second Army attacked the Russian right flank near the First Government Fort. The Second Army's advance was halted by fierce resistance from Russian rear guard units. The Battle of Mukden became the first large-scale battle in history, with a combined total of 570,000 Japanese and Russian troops. Japanese casualties totaled 75,000, while Russian casualties reached 90,000.

　　The Russian Revolution erupted on January 9, 1905, following the Bloody Sunday incident. After the Japanese Navy achieved a decisive victory in the Battle of Tsushima in May, the two countries began negotiations under U.S. mediation. A ceasefire was established in September, and the Treaty of Portsmouth was ratified in October, bringing the Russo-Japanese War to an end.

On July 26, 1944, after being captured by the US military and transferred to a US aircraft carrier, the bodies of Japanese soldiers were carried by US soldiers from stretchers and buried at sea in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands.

　　On July 26, 1944, the body of a Japanese soldier who had been captured by the U.S. military and transferred to a U.S. aircraft carrier died. His body was then thrown into the sea off the coast of Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands by U.S. soldiers, who removed it from a stretcher and dropped it into the Pacific Ocean.

　　Japanese military prisoners of war who had been severely wounded during the invasion of the Marshall Islands died. The bodies of Japanese military prisoners buried at sea were buried at sea from the deck of an assault transport ship operated by the Coast Guard. Japanese soldiers bid farewell to the bodies sent to the South Pacific.During the Battle of the Marshall Islands in World War II, the bodies of several soldiers from both the U.S. and Japanese armies were buried at sea. This was a common practice during wartime, especially when it was difficult to return the bodies to the homeland. While the bodies were given a respectful send-off, sea burials were a practical solution for disposing of the remains and often evolved into a way to honor the fallen soldiers.

　　The Battle of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands was a series of battles fought between the United States and Japan from August 1942 to February 1944 in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It was the first major offensive by the U.S. Pacific Fleet and Marine Corps across the entire Central Pacific. The U.S. military established airfields and naval bases to support operations across the entire Central Pacific using air and naval weapons.The U.S. military suffered 5,100 killed in action and 6,700 wounded. The Japanese military lost 21,000 killed in action, with only 375 captured by the U.S. military.

On March 6, 1945, in western Hungary, German armored soldiers passed by the bodies of dead Soviet soldiers without paying any attention to them. Unlike the fanatical volunteers, the reinforcements consisted of conscripted new recruits, remnants of defeated units, and ground personnel from the German Air Force.

   In the final stages of World War II, on March 6, 1945, when Operation Spring Awakening was launched on the Eastern Front in western Hungary, German forces initially achieved some success with localized attacks. The morale of the German 6th SS Panzer Army remained intact. German tank crewmen ignored the bodies of Soviet soldiers lying nearby as they passed by.Unlike the fanatical volunteers who had once formed divisions, the reinforcements consisted of conscripted new recruits, remnants of defeated units, and large numbers of ground personnel from the German Air Force. 

   Operation Spring Awakening was the German Army's final offensive of World War II. The operation took place from March 6 to March 15, 1945, in the western part of Hungary around Lake Balaton on the Eastern Front.The objective was to secure the Axis powers' last oil reserves and halt the Red Army's advance toward Vienna. The operation erupted after German forces were secretly moved to the Balaton Lake region. Many German units participated, including the 6th Panzer Army and its subordinate Waffen-SS divisions. These units had withdrawn after the failure of the Ardennes Offensive on the Western Front.The German forces launched attacks from three directions but were forced to retreat by March 15. On March 16, the Soviet Red Army and Allied forces began their delayed advance on Vienna. 

   By spring 1945, the situation for German forces on the Eastern Front was catastrophic. The Soviet Red Army was just 70 kilometers from the capital, Berlin.The final spring offensive of the Third Reich, known as the “Spring Awakening,” erupted on March 6, 1945. Despite the collapse of the German military and war economy, the German army once again mobilized a massive force. The Spring Awakening operation involved 430,000 German soldiers, approximately 800 tanks and assault guns, and 6,000 heavy artillery pieces and mortars.Some 800 aircraft were also mobilized. In the Spring Awakening operation, approximately 12,358 German soldiers were wounded, while the Soviet Red Army suffered 32,899 casualties. The casualties among the Axis-aligned Hungarian forces were extremely high, with approximately 350,000 military personnel killed and an estimated 590,000 civilians killed. 

From the early stages of World War I, in 1914, explosions caused by weapons of mass destruction destroyed even sturdy buildings, killing many people in the surrounding areas and scattering large numbers of corpses on the ground.

   From the early stages of World War I, in 1914, explosions caused by weapons of mass destruction destroyed even sturdy buildings. Large numbers of people were killed in the surrounding areas, and the ground was littered with countless corpses.

   During World War I, over 9 million soldiers, sailors, and airmen were killed in action. Additionally, an estimated 5 million civilians lost their lives due to occupation, shelling, starvation, and disease. The Armenian Genocide of 1915, a genocide carried out under the guise of war, erupted as a horrific act of mass murder.The influenza pandemic that began during World War I was one of the devastating consequences of the war. The mass exodus of Serbs from Serbia at the end of 1915 was another brutal episode in which many civilians lost their lives. The Allied naval blockade of Germany had similar consequences, resulting in the deaths of more than three-quarters of the German civilian population.

   The first few months of World War I saw massive casualties caused by modern weapons. By 1914, over 5 million people were killed across all fronts, with over 1 million deaths. This was the first time in history that such a scale of violence had been witnessed, resulting from the deadly combination of large armies and modern weapons.The use of mass-killing weapons such as tanks, airplanes, submarines, machine guns, modern artillery, flamethrowers, and poison gas by the military resulted in the greatest loss of human life in any war in history. Both sides repeatedly crossed the same territory. Civilians were often caught in gunfire, and millions of people were killed as armies advanced. Both sides viewed the conflict not as war but as mass murder.

The Das Reich Waffen-SS Division, notorious for its brutality and numerous war crimes, marched through a forest path littered with the bodies of Russian soldiers in November 1941.

 　　The Das Reich Waffen-SS Division, part of the German 2nd SS Panzer Division, marched through a forest path littered with the bodies of Russian soldiers in November 1941.Das Reich was notorious for its brutality and committed numerous war crimes, including the mass killings in Chûl on June 9, 1944, and in Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944. 

　　In the battles in western Russia, terrain played a significant role. As the German SS advanced, the Baltic states and surrounding Russian territories were covered in dense forests.Combat in forest areas required special skills. The invasion manuals of the Waffen SS and the German Armed Forces barely mentioned such skills. Even German soldiers who had grown up in the Black Forest region of southwestern Germany found themselves almost immobilized. The vast forests, overgrown with dense underbrush, were unfamiliar territory. Some parts of the Russian forests seemed like untouched primeval forests.German troops fighting in the Russian region rarely ventured deep into the forests on reconnaissance missions. German soldiers found it difficult to penetrate the dense forests and feared Russian ambushes. For the growing Soviet guerrilla units, the forests provided natural hiding places. The German army was unable to gain control of the Russian forests in enemy territory.

　　On June 9, 1944, soldiers of the 2nd Guards Tank Division, amid growing resistance from civilians against the German occupying forces, strangled 99 civilians in Tour. Around noon on June 9, 120 soldiers of the 2nd Guards Division arrived in Oradour-sur-Glane, 30 kilometers away, where villagers had been gathered in the market square.The men were divided into five groups and shot in barns. The SS soldiers locked the women and children in the village church and set it on fire. They shot the women and children trying to escape the flames. They then entered the church and shot the survivors. In this massacre, 642 villagers were killed, including 245 women and 207 children, with only a few survivors.

During the Pacific War, on June 5, 1945, 350 B-29 bombers of the US Army carried out an air raid on the area between Nishinomiya and Tarumi in Kobe City, scattering numerous bodies on the cobblestones of Yamate-dori Street.

   During the Pacific War, on June 5, 1945, 350 B-29 bombers of the U.S. military carried out an air raid on the area between Nishinomiya and Tarumi in Kobe City. Photographs taken by the Hyogo Prefectural Police Headquarters showed numerous bodies scattered across the cobblestones of the Yamate-dori Streetcar Line in Kobe City. The eastern half of Kobe City was reduced to a wasteland by the air raid.The casualties and damage from the Kobe Great Air Raid were immense. Over three major air raids on March 17, May 11, and June 5, 1945, tens of thousands of incendiary bombs were dropped, reducing the main urban areas of Kobe City to ashes.

   The air raid on June 5, 1945, carried out by the U.S. Army Air Forces' B-29 units targeting Kobe's urban areas and military objectives, is referred to as the Kobe Great Air Raid.Kobe was targeted on June 5 and suffered severe damage. The Kobe Great Air Raid resulted in 7,524 deaths, 16,948 injuries, 142,586 destroyed homes, and 531,694 affected individuals within the city limits of Kobe.

     From November 1, 1944, B-29 bombers began flying from the Mariana Islands (Saipan, Guam, and Tinian) to the skies over the Japanese mainland, marking the intensification of strategic bombing raids on the mainland.From mid-March to August 15, 1945, the U.S. military carried out night and daytime incendiary bomb attacks on urban industrial areas using B-29 bombers. During the incendiary bomb attacks on densely populated urban areas (from mid-March to August 15, 1945), the dropping of incendiary bombs on high-density residential areas resulted in the complete destruction of homes and the indiscriminate killing and wounding of civilian residents in urban areas.Massive incendiary bombings were carried out on Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. Starting in June, the targets were expanded to include smaller cities. Including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a total of 113 municipalities across the country suffered casualties and damage from U.S. air raids.

The Ukrainian and Russian militaries carried out the largest-scale exchange of remains to date, returning the bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in action to their respective countries on June 17, 2025, as part of a challenging mission to repatriate the remains.

   On June 10, 2025, in Donetsk, a Ukrainian military body recovery team conducted an autopsy on the remains of Russian soldiers. This is part of a challenging mission to repatriate the bodies of soldiers killed in action from both sides, marking the largest-scale exchange of remains to date. Ukrainian military units are relying on ground drones for approximately 20% of the task of evacuating the bodies.The drones are remotely operated, transporting the bodies of deceased and wounded soldiers to the front lines and returning them to the rear. 

   Seven Russian soldiers lay on a hill in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Three were charred black, and four were decomposing. Maggots crawled out of the hollow skulls, and flies completely covered the bodies. The stench of decomposition was overwhelming.The smell of death is the odor of decomposing bodies. The worst part is living in a state where you cannot evacuate for days, with the stench of death wafting from the bodies of fallen comrades in the defensive positions. As dusk falls and drone flight conditions deteriorate, the bodies of fallen comrades are recovered. Russian forces advancing on the front lines can easily obtain the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in action.

    On June 17, 2025, Ukraine and Russia exchanged 6,000 bodies at their latest bilateral meeting in Istanbul. Over the past two years, body exchanges between the two armies have been conducted approximately twice a month.According to Defense Ministry data, as of May 2024, while Russia has not disclosed any figures, Ukraine has recovered the remains of over 8,000 Ukrainian soldiers. Body recovery teams extracted DNA from spinal fragments in the ashes of the bodies. Some remains were identified by necklaces carried by family members. Tens of thousands of families on both sides remain unaware of the fate of their loved ones lost in combat.

Warning: Experts from the Ukrainian body exhumation group Platsdarm analyze dead Russian soldiers, June 10 in Donetsk.

Cristian Segura