Oleksandr, Bohdana’s mum and her youthful step-sister Credit score – Courtesy of Bohdana Teslenko
Myroslava Melnychenko is aware of the village, the precise spot, the place her youthful brother’s physique lies. She has seen the grainy drone footage of him being killed in battle.
However he’s in a spot that neither she nor the specialists whose job it’s to retrieve the our bodies of fallen troopers can get to, almost three years after his loss of life.
“It is painful that he cannot be introduced again, however I nonetheless hope that at some point we’ll handle to do it,” she tells TIME.
Though his household is aware of he’s gone, Oleksii Melnychenko is counted as one in all 146,000 “lacking” folks from each Ukraine and Russia in Ukraine’s warfare by the Worldwide Committee of the Crimson Cross (ICRC). The definition contains any one that has not been accounted for, or whose stays haven’t been retrieved, even when there’s important proof to indicate they’re useless.
For Melnychenko and lots of hundreds in her place, the shortage of a burial means she has been unable to honor her brother the best way he deserves.
“Those that are listed as lacking stay in a form of limbo,” she says. “It is completely very important for Oleksii to have a spot the place he may be buried, so we’ve got a spot to go the place you realize his life and his loss of life are acknowledged. I simply don’t need him to easily vanish into skinny air.”
Learn extra: The Hidden Conflict Over Ukraine’s Misplaced Kids
Melnychenko, who works as a psychologist, remembers rising up that she “was all the time the accountable one, he was extra easygoing, extra gentle.”
Oleksii volunteered for the Ukrainian military quickly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. On the time of his loss of life, later that 12 months, he was combating on the frontline within the village of Marinka, close to the japanese metropolis of Donetsk.
“We knew it was such a brutal place by way of the combating,” Melnychenko explains, including that she nonetheless maintained common contact together with her brother presently.
Then, in January 2023, their mom was knowledgeable that Oleksii was lacking. Melnychenko started years of analysis to substantiate her brother’s destiny. She contacted individuals who knew Oleksii, her fellow troopers, who mentioned that he had been killed whereas main a mission. They mentioned there was Russian drone footage of the battle and of his loss of life.
“His fellow troopers did not need me to see the video so I didn’t get traumatised, however I discovered it myself. I watched it and I made positive it was my brother,” she says.
Studying that her brother’s loss of life after her lengthy search had a big impact on her. “I used to be unwell for a very long time. I went to the medical doctors, I had remedies, and I am nonetheless attempting to place myself again collectively,” says Melnychenko.
She believes bringing her brother residence is a crucial a part of her therapeutic.
“What made us human wasn’t any invention, however the second we began to bury our useless,” she says.
Andres Rodriguez Zorro, a forensic coordinator with ICRC whose job is to coordinate the organisation’s humanitarian forensic response and prepare these concerned in operations to retrieve and establish lacking individuals, describes the “ambiguous loss” felt by households who can not retrieve the our bodies of their family members.
Myroslava and her brother OleksiiCourtesy of Myroslava Melnychenko
“Are you able to think about that they’ve this uncertainty, if their relative is alive, if they’re useless,” Zorro explains.
He says that the form of weaponry and expertise used, alongside a constantly-changing frontline, make Russia’s invasion a very distinctive battle.
“That is the primary time that we face volumes of tons of of hundreds of lacking or killed in motion,” he says.
“We’re speaking a few very excessive stage of hostilities, the battle could be very energetic and in addition due to the kind of weapons, the restoration could be very difficult…even when there’s some form of discount of the hostilities to get there and recuperate the our bodies, they [recovery personnel] are exposing their lives as a result of there’s quite a lot of mines and unexploded issues,” says Zorro, including that most of the stays are burned, dispersed and even skeletonized, making restoration much more troublesome.
Zorro says that his mission in Ukraine, which he has simply accomplished, has been “very difficult” however “for positive my greatest mission.”
He says that he constantly frolicked on the lookout for new methods to enhance the restoration and identification processes.
“I had this chance to make use of inventiveness to adapt to those troublesome challenges. How one can present the method of search and restoration, the transportation of our bodies…How one can correctly repatriate these our bodies and assist the method of correct burial,” Zorro explains.
The our bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian troopers have been returned by Russia on August 19, exhibiting potential hope that extra households can safe closure and correctly bury their family members. In return, Ukraine additionally returned 19 our bodies to Russia.
Nevertheless, tens of hundreds of unaccounted our bodies stay buried and out of attain on the battlefield.
Bohdana Teslenko is one other Ukrainian left with simply reminiscences of a beloved one. Her father Oleksandr, is believed to have been killed throughout combating in 2023. Though his loss of life has not been confirmed, Teslenko says she has seen photographs of her father’s physique.
“There are not any phrases that may really describe what it is wish to see your dad, the very best dad on the planet, to be in that picture,” she says.
A view of the ruined and deserted city of Mariinka within the Donetsk area, Russian-controlled Ukraine, on April 1, 2025. That is the city the place Oleksii Melnychenko’s physique nonetheless lies. Stringer—AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Teslenko’s father, Oleksandr, had lengthy labored in safety when he first volunteered for the Donbas battalion in 2014 throughout Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the next Russian-backed battle in japanese Ukraine’s Donbas area.
In 2022, he as soon as once more volunteered for the Ukrainian military as Russia’s full-scale invasion started. “Throughout holidays, we’d all get collectively and report movies saying how a lot we love him, how proud we’re of him, and ship him these sorts of movies,” Teslenko remembers when her father was deployed.
“Dad completely beloved it. He later mentioned that at any time when he was with out the web, he would re-watch these movies, and that was really one thing that gave him power,” she continues.
In June 2023, Teslenko’s father would return residence for a brief break from combating on the frontline. Teslenko and her mom would spend the final day with him on the lookout for a raincoat that her father would take again with him.
Weeks later, on July 25, Teslenko’s mom was knowledgeable that Oleksandr had been killed. Teslenko remembers: “The primary few hours, we cried as a result of we did not know what to do. We could not be ready for a state of affairs like this,” says Teslenko.
Three days later, they discovered pictures of Oleksandr’s physique on Russian telegram channels. “My coronary heart almost stopped, and my mother and sister have been with me. They have been holding me, holding my fingers, holding my face as properly.”
Teslenko additionally realized of his final moments. She says {that a} Russian Black Hussars unit wearing Ukrainian safety uniforms superior in direction of her father. Oleksandr reportedly coated his unit for his or her retreat.
“They (Russian troopers) ripped off his Chevron, little Ukrainian flag and shoved it into his mouth and mentioned: ‘He tried to sneak up, so we killed him.’”
Teslenko has since been working with the assist of the Crimson Cross within the seek for his stays, receiving emotional assist from the group during the last two years as she tries to get her father’s physique residence.
The 27-year-old can be planning to participate in an experimental DNA program, and has given consent for her information for use ought to it go forward.
Within the meantime, Teslenko remains to be ready for solutions.
“He was a hero, and it hurts a lot that we nonetheless can not retrieve his physique and cope with the state of affairs…He gave his life to save lots of six others, and for that solely, he deserves each award and all of the potential recognition,” she says.
She believes her father would approve. Earlier than Oleksandr’s loss of life, he spoke with Teslenko’s mom about the potential of dying on the frontline. She remembers him saying: “It is terrifying to lie within the discipline, and it is crucial for the physique to be introduced again.”
Contact us at letters@time.com.
