Old graves dug up to provide space for mounting casualties
LVIV, Ukraine — For close to 15 months, the bodies of fallen soldiers have steadily filled a hillside military cemetery in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Now, the old, unmarked graves of those killed in past wars are being exhumed to make way for the seemingly endless stream of dead since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Early last week, half a dozen gravediggers took a break in the shade, waiting for the latest coffin to inter at the cemetery, called Lychakiv. Smoking cigarettes and shielding themselves from the sun, they lamented the devastation that Russia had wrought. And they said they were bracing for more deaths as the fighting grew more intense during Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Fierce battles are playing out on the front line in the country’s east and south, with Ukraine reporting Monday that it had recaptured eight settlements over two weeksof “offensive actions.”
Hanna Malyar, a deputy defense minister, wrote on the Telegram messaging app that Ukrainian units had advanced about 4.3 miles and retaken an area around 44 square miles in the south. Among the settlements reclaimed, she said, was the village of Piatykhatky, confirming Russian reports over the weekend.
While the recapture of Piatykhatky, in the Zaporizhzhia region, is evidence that Ukraine’s forces continue to advance, it is not a significant military breakthrough. Like other villages recaptured, this one is small — Piatykhatky translates to “five houses” — and claiming them has cost Ukrainian lives and advanced Western equipment.
“The situation in the east is difficult now,” Ms. Malyar wrote. “The enemy has raised its forces and is conducting an active offensive in the Lyman and Kupyan directions, trying to seize the initiative from us.”
But, she added, “Our troops act courageously in the face of the enemy’s superiority in forces and means and do not allow the enemy to advance.”
A British defense intelligence report said that both armies were suffering significant casualties from the current fighting, and military experts have said that months of artillery duels and trench warfare most likely lie ahead.
Like the Ukrainians, the Russians have been secretive about the toll from the war. The Kremlin has not updated its official casualty count since September, when the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said nearly 6,000 Russians had been killed. Experts considered that number low at the time.
Leaked Pentagon documents published in April estimated that Ukraine had suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, with up to 17,500 killed in action, while Russians had 189,500 to 223,000 casualties, including up to 43,000 killed in action.
A team of often-anonymous researchers inside and outside Russia, led by the Mediazona news organization and the BBC News Russian service, has compiled an independent tally of confirmed deaths that is updated biweekly.
Last week, the tally surpassed 25,000 victims, also considered an undercount. The team uses materials such as obituaries in local newspapers and cemetery visits for its count. Since the effort started last year, multiple regions in Russia have banned obituaries to hide the number.
The magnitude of the losses is being felt in communities such as the one in Lviv, starkly visible in the growing number of military graves in cemeteries large and small around the country.
It’s not uncommon for several military funerals to be held simultaneously in Lviv. One of the harsh realities of the war is that even in a city far from the active fighting, soldiers killed on the front line are returned to their hometowns, sometimes in groups, and laid to rest at the same time. It is efficient since the dead keep coming.