A Vast Ukrainian Cemetery Awaits the Casualties of the Counter-Offensive

The chaplain

“Before, this was an empty place,” said Father Dmytro Povorotniy, gesturing with a sweep of his arm towards ranks of graves topped with black earth. They lay beneath a canopy of blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags luffing in the wind. “Everything began in 2014,” he said, when war broke between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region to the east of the country. At the entrance of the Krasnopilske cemetery in Dnipro, a city in the heart of Ukraine, we walked among black-granite headstones, etched with portraits of soldiers, that commemorate the first casualties of that conflict. Across the path lay a vast muddy field of simple wooden crosses – the graves of soldiers killed since February 24th last year. I visited on a cold April day: lead skies, pouring rain, drowned earthworms underfoot. “Here is Yuri Matyshak,” said Father Dymtro, stopping beside one tomb. “He was a history teacher at the University of Donetsk. I knew him.”

Father Dymtro volunteered when the fighting started in 2014. He is now an official military chaplain but has never carried a gun. His hair was razored at the sides and gathered into a long, thin ponytail on top. He was dressed not in religious robes but army garb, with a badge of the Archangel Michael velcroed to the webbing.

Matyshak was killed at Donetsk airport in one of the early battles of 2014. “It was very difficult to find his body in the rubble,” said Father Dmytro, rain dripping from the brim of his hat. “He was only identified by a wooden cross around his neck that I had given him. We were only able to bury him six months later.” Donetsk was behind enemy lines, so they brought the body to Krasnopilske. “There are many with stories like this,” said Father Dmytro, patting a granite headstone the way someone might rub a friend’s shoulder in consolation.

Roughly 14,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and civilians were killed in the Donbas between 2014 and 2022. Neither the Russians nor Ukrainian authorities have released figures for casualties over the past 15 months of war. Estimates put the numbers of dead in the tens of thousands. In Ukraine losses have become normal. There is a daily litany of sadness on social media. In almost every cemetery from the east of the country to the west, there is a cluster of fresh graves laden with blue-and-yellow wreaths of plastic flowers.

The city of Dnipro, close to the front lines to the south and east, is a hub for Ukrainian casualties. Krasnopilske is the only municipal cemetery with enough space for the dead. The civilian part of the cemetery nestles in a hollow; the military section sits higher, on the crest of the hill, open to the sky and exposed to the wind. It has become one of the main resting places for fallen Ukrainian soldiers. Some come from the Dnipro area, many are from towns now in occupied territory, others are marked with plaques that read, “Temporarily unknown defender of Ukraine”.

As we talked, a yellow digger scooped a row of new graves. “It is growing,” said Father Dmytro. “It is three times the size of what it was before the invasion.”

The families

“It was impossible to bury him in Luhansk,” said Victoria, who didn’t want to give her last name. She was standing with her family beside the grave of her husband Stanislav, who had been killed in the first months of the full-scale invasion. The men passed a plastic cup of vodka between them and raised a toast, the women shushed two young boys who wanted to play with the dogs that roam about the cemetery, nosing the traditional offerings of food relatives leave on the graves.

“Mama, why are we standing here?” one boy asked. A small, wet dog trotted past with a looted sandwich in his mouth. Victoria was living in occupied territory when her husband died and she had not been able to go to his funeral. “I watched it online on Telegram,” she said, waving her telephone over the scene (she was livestreaming to her mother).

A little way off, a priest stood over a grave. He recited a homily and sang a psalm to commemorate the anniversary of the death, as is the Orthodox Christian tradition. Little bells tinkled on the chain as he swung the incense burner. The group of mourners stood by, red-eyed, their shoes wrapped in plastic bags to protect them from the mud.

“So many I’ve seen buried with my own eyes,” said Father Roman, young and rosy-cheeked, as he gazed over the lines of humped earth. “There are more than 2,000 here and this is only one cemetery. There were so many funerals during the counter-offensive in September, it was one after another.” He excused himself. It was Maundy Thursday and he had to prepare for Easter.

Volodya didn’t want to give his real name because he is a serving National Guardsman. He had come with his mother and Aliona, his brother’s godmother. “Half a year ago, when we buried my brother, the line of graves stopped at this row. Now,” he said, spreading his arms to indicate the vast field of muddy graves, “all these are fresh.” Volodya’s brother was killed in October during the counter-offensive to liberate Kherson, a city in the south. His parents, still living under occupation at the time, had been unable to attend the funeral. Volodya begged his commander for leave, but several days passed before it was granted. Only Aliona was able to visit his brother, who had lain in a coma in hospital before he died.

Volodya’s mother, who didn’t want her name to be used, caressed the wooden cross at her son’s grave. “This is where his feet are,” she said, shaking her head a little, because it was the wrong way round. “His head is at the other end.”

“It might sound strange,” said Aliona, “but it is a great happiness that we have someone we can visit. I saw so many in the morgue who could not find their loved ones.” One was the mother of the soldier buried in the next grave. At the morgue, Aliona saw her screaming and crying when she identified the body. “He was buried on the same day as Volodya’s brother and I realised, then, that he had died six months earlier. Imagine, that poor mother had been looking for him all that time.”

Volodya pointed to the line of unknown soldiers’ graves behind his brother’s. “There were 25 buried the same day as my brother, and only four of them had been identified.” Unknown soldiers are buried with military honours. The ceremony is officiated by a priest, a rabbi and an imam, which covers most eventualities. If a body is identified at a later date, it is exhumed and returned to the family.

Several women who come every day to the cemetery have formed a small group, sharing flasks of tea, biscuits and plans to smarten up some of the more neglected plots. Often they place a single carnation along a row of unknown graves. “Their mothers still don’t know where they are,” said Tatiana Skliarova.

She was visiting her only child, Sergei, who was killed on April 28th last year when a missile hit his base. “I talked to him at 7 o’clock in the morning, and the rocket killed him 15 minutes later,” she said. “I am living in this cemetery. It is like I am with him, but at the same time he is very far away.” She had built a wooden frame around his grave, bedded with a length of plastic grass and decorated with lanterns and flowers. Skliarova, stoutly bundled against the wind, was entirely dedicated to her grief. She screamed out her misery, raw and furious, leant sobbing against the cross and then wiped away her tears with a rag.