A unit of Ukrainian volunteers travels the Donbass region to find the remains of Russian soldiers on their territory.
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The “Globe & Mail” spoke with the head of this unit nicknamed “the Black Tulips”, Oleksiy Yukov, and his group of volunteers who have already found 300 bodies.
The 37-year-old has been collecting bodies in the fields of eastern Ukraine since 2012. He first learned to do so alongside his father, who worked for a non-governmental organization that recovered the bodies of Soviet and Nazi soldiers who died here during World War II.
The “Black Tulips” get their nickname from the moniker given to the Soviet plane that brought home dead Red Army soldiers from the 1980s war in Afghanistan.
“A stain that we must remove”
Finding the bodies is a necessary evil according to the volunteers.
“For me, it’s just a stain that we have to remove from our land,” Vasily Zagorodnyuk, 55, said as he watched his colleagues photograph the evidence around Body 299.
The risks of stepping on a mine do not slow down the members of the team.
“Of course it’s dangerous, but there is danger everywhere in Ukraine,” said Artur Semeyko, passing a tank shell half buried in the mud.
The remains of Russian soldiers are placed in bags and then kept in a specialized morgue. Ukrainians keep all the information collected during identification, in addition to taking DNA. The data is then transmitted to the Russian army. The aim is to allow an exchange of remains between the two countries, which has happened frequently in the past 11 months, according to the “Globe & Mail”.
“We are helping to bring our guys – who defended their country – back to their families, their mothers, fathers, daughters and sons,” said Andriy Semeyko, a 21-year-old who joined “the Black Tulips”. last month.
