Every day Zenyk and his dog Nyk walk the route from Donbass on the Eastern Front to Dnipro to collect the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in action.
In a small white refrigerated truck, with the logo of the “Ukrainian Armed Forces”, Zenyk, a 51-year-old conscript who prefers not to reveal his surname, goes to collect the bodies at dawn from a military morgue in the eastern region. from Donetsk.
It is a small, discreet house, without visible signage, on the side of the road and with an old closed and refrigerated warehouse. The white and black plastic bags containing the bodies are placed on the cement floor.
Zenyk describes his work as ‘atypical’, but ‘needs to be done’. “I have to take the heroes home, the dead. They have to go home too, where their wives, children and parents are waiting for them,” this former construction contractor explained to AFP.
In 2014, he volunteered to return to their families the bodies of soldiers killed in clashes with pro-Russian separatists orchestrated by Russia.
After the offensive in February 2022, Zenyk was recruited by the army. “The most difficult thing was handing over the body to the family. Now I have no contact with the families anymore,” said Zenyk, a father of two. One of them is fighting in the Donetsky region, while the other is a border guard.
No tears
The death bags are brought to the morgue by units involved in collecting bodies in the region or by the brigades to which the soldiers belonged.
Zenyk said he is “used to” his job because “when you cry for each of them, it’s hard to bear it.” “I arrive and find 10 to 15 bodies. I have to photograph (the faces), check (the clothes) for grenades or ammunition, I have to describe the bodies before the boys put them in the vehicle, once the administrative procedures are completed” , he explains.
That morning he transported about 20 bodies and took them to the Dnipro warehouse, he told AFP.
Neither Kiev nor Moscow provide information about their losses. According to analysts, the number of wounded and killed soldiers on both sides since February 24, 2022 is at least tens of thousands.
In a rare statement on the subject, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a US media outlet in June 2022 that between 60 and 100 Ukrainian soldiers die in combat every day.
“At the beginning of the invasion there were many deaths, now there are fewer,” Zenyk said. “With an offensive, more bodies arrive, because the offensive creates even more victims,” he explains.
According to the gravedigger, at the beginning of the conflict “there were no young people, but now even the youngest are starting to die, boys born in 2003 and 2004.”
It also sometimes carries Russian soldiers who hand themselves over to the General Staff of the Armed Forces to be exchanged for the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.
Later that morning, Zenyk left for Dnipro, 200 kilometers away. Next to him in the passenger seat is his dog Nyk, his one-year-old partner who was rescued in Bakhmut, a city devastated by two months of fighting.
Source: DN
