In Ukraine, the efforts imposed on defining criminal workers in the war

In a small reception room at a hospital in DNIPRO, in the south of the center of Ukraine, VikToria Lants struggled to look at the computer screen as a criminal factor mixed through the images of the remains indexed in the sunken morgue.

Some of the pictures were badly damaged bodies, military clothes and pocket knife.

When her family was leading to a refrigerated unit to see one body, her eyes remained on a wooden cross.

The 31 -year -old son, Vladislav Kharkov, got one similar by his grandmother before sending him to the confrontation line during the summer.

The last time I spoke to him was on August 19.

She said, “He said that everything would be fine, mom. He knew how everyone was worried about it,” recalling their final phone conversation.

Kharkov, who was previously working as a contractor before formulating in the spring by Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia, was officially listed as missing – one of the tens of thousands of soldiers in the record of missing national people.

Morgi crowded and growing cemeteries

Throughout the country, Morges are burdened with burdens and forensic medical medicine investigators around the clock to determine the increasing number of deaths – and in some cases they release them to burial even before confirming their identities.

Within more than three and a half years since Russia has launched a large -scale invasion of Ukraine, there was little information issued by Kiev or Moscow about the number of soldiers who were killed.

Independent Russian media collected a list that shows at least 130,000 Russian soldiers were killedBut they appreciate that the real number is almost twice that.

In December 2024, Ukrainian President Voludmir Zelinski This is mentioned Ukrainian 43000 The soldiers were killed. He revealed this number on social media after Donald Trump, who was at the time, claimed that Ukraine had “lost” 400,000 sizes.

While Trump’s efforts to a ceasefire between the two sides I stumbledOne of the few agreements that came out of the limited negotiations included the restoration of the mass dead.

In June, Residences 6,057 The soldiers were transferred to Ukraine, according to officials, while the Kremlin said they had received 78 bodies. None of the sides commented on the reason for the exchanging exchange of numbers.

A few weeks before the transfer of the bodies of the return to the group home to Morgez throughout Ukraine, Vladislav Kharkov was sent to military training. The father of a nine -year -old girl, was recruited by the officers while standing at a train station in the Venitsia region, in the west of Ukraine, and was placed on a bus.

Lancet, his mother, compare him with “kidnapping” and demands the knowledge of the number of members of the political elite in Ukraine who sent their children out of the country to avoid service.

“Everyone should be equal to the face of war,” she said. “How many mothers are like me?”

Waiting for an answer

In the morgue, Lantis and her daughter were led to a refrigerated unit to try to identify her son. She returned clearly. While she said that the body was not in good condition, she believed that her son was because of the mole that was visible on his stomach.

She and her husband gave DNA samples, but it might be months before laboratory re -tests.

Until then, you fear a phone call and an answer you do not want to hear. “I hope this is a mistake … it’s not true. It is just a terrible dream,” Lancets said.

Her mind continues to return to the next day for her son. She said that the motherhood nurse brought a child alongside her bed to feed, but she immediately knew that she was not for her.

While the mark on the blanket bears its name, at a closer look, one different one was written on the hospital bracelet that was given the children moments after birth.

After the mix, her son returned to her, holding a possibility-no matter how small-that something similar may happen this time.

ICRC assists criminal investigators in Ukraine, and provides advice and assistance in increasing the ability of the system that was not designed to deal with the dark toll of the grinding war.

“They have great experience inside the country, and they know what they are doing. It is very clear that they are drowning,” said Tania Bertrand, a forensic from ICRC from Montreal, who was based in Dnibro during the past year.

Mark Griffs cross unidentified soldiers

Inside the Forensic Medicine Laboratory at DNIPRO, Valeri Viun pulled bone fragments from a box that came from the front line in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.

The Head of the Criminal Criminal Criminal Department put them on the table. His goal is to know if they are all human and the number of people who may belong to them.

Fion said that when the remains include soft tissue, the laboratory will test the DNA test. But due to the violent nature of the war, sometimes investigators have bone fragments only to work with it.

“Everyone has the right to a decent life, and everyone has the right to dignitary death,” Fion said. “We don’t want to allow the person to be buried without a name.”

But in a sprawling cemetery in DNIPRO, there is an increased section for unknown soldiers. The paintings on the simple wooden crosses describe the person as “temporarily anonymous.”

The bodies are buried in a large part due to a lack of space in cold storage units.

“These children will not see their father again.”

Outside the forensic laboratory in which Fion is working, there is a fixed humor from the cooling truck.

Fion said that he is now living in the hospital because there is a lot of work to do, and the difficulty of reaching its community in the east in the Dnipro region is increasing, where Russian forces are trying to pay more Ukrainian lands and control more Ukrainian lands.

Sometimes at night, when the window is open, he said he hears trucks, along with the screams and screams of women who have just identified a member of his family.

“The most difficult part is when you do not have time for the mother’s embrace that you just got acquainted with her son,” said Veon. “The most terrifying thing is when I see children running here … and they will not see these children the father again.”

He said that sometimes, despite all the tests conducted to confirm the identity of the person, the family does not want to accept that I love it has died, and instead choose the belief that it should be a prisoner of war in captivity.

Feon, who has been working in forensic for 45 years, said he believed that he would spend his rest of his life in an attempt to determine the death of Ukraine from this war.

He said that when the war ends in the end, there will be an increase in the remains of more restored than the areas that could not have been largely accessible along the front.

“There will be a lot of bodies that have not yet been found, and these bodies must be recognized,” he said. “Hell will remain for another 10 years.”