In far western Ukraine, a village in mourning
STARYCHI, Ukraine — The mourning began with a pair of caskets, one open, one shut.
Lined in white fabric, they held two of the Ukrainian fighters killed in Russia’s invasion. Here, in a gray village under a gray sky near the western border with Poland, they were the first reminder that the war could come this far.
The men were killed Sunday when Russian missiles struck a military base in nearby Yavoriv, a hub of military cooperation between Ukraine and NATO countries. At least 35 people died in all.
Until then, this part of Ukraine had been spared, a witness only to the exhausting flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees heading for the border. Bright billboards urging war readiness had been raised. Villagers erected sandbagged checkpoints, bottles for Molotov cocktails stacked behind them.
Then the missiles came. On Wednesday, three days later, the villagers gathered in Starychi to bury Roman Rak and Mykola Mykytiuk. They were soldiers, men in their late 40s and early 50s.
Loved ones and fellow soldiers, many their age or older, with paunches and fraying hair, were the first to mourn.
Slowly, more villagers arrived. A teenage boy with close-cropped hair carried red roses.
The crowd grew to scores of people. At a signal, fellow fighters carried the caskets across the yard and into the wooden church. The crowd gathered, standing outside the door.
“These guys were like angels for us,” said a local deacon, Taras Hlova. “They died protecting us.
“I thought they’d be crazy to attack so close to NATO countries,” he said of Russia. “I hope God has mercy on us.”