Kiev –
The bodies of the two Ukrainian soldiers lay motionless in a field for months. Around them were bloodstains and their guns.
The soldiers’ relatives identified their bodies from aerial images collected by drones. Although unbearable to watch, it seemed clear: the two men – Pvt. Serhiy Matsiuk and Pvt. Andriy Zaretsky – were dead. But more than four months later, the Ukrainian military is still listing them as missing, even though drone footage from a fellow soldier showed them still there weeks later.
“I want to have his grave, where I can cry all this out properly,” said Zaretsky’s wife, Anastasia, 31, who has been seeking closure since he was killed in November in the Zaporizhia region of southern Ukraine.
