‘Relatives need to say goodbye’: Meet Ukraine’s body collectors who take fallen soldiers home from the frontline
Dealing with death is the grimmest reality of war – something few understand better than Taras.
The sergeant is part of a unit tasked with collecting the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in action from morgues near the frontline and delivering them back to their families.
“I try to return our fallen warriors home as soon as possible,” Taras, 44, told Sky News as he drove his lorry through the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.
“Their relatives need to say goodbye and bury them as it should be. So, that is my mission.”
It is a relentless cycle for him and the rest of the On The Shield team as Ukraine battles wave after wave of Russian attacks along the frontline across the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
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The Ukrainian authorities have not released figures of their war dead, but Western officials have put the number at more than 100,000 killed and injured since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. The Russian toll is even higher, with the United States most recently saying the death toll alone was some 188,000.
Just one morning spent with Taras offered a sense of the scale of Ukraine’s loss.
He collected the bodies of 22 soldiers from two morgues alone.
Taras said seeing first-hand the price that his country is paying can become too much to bear.
“Sometimes I can’t sleep because of the young boys and girls,” he said.
“Sometimes I cry – like any normal person. Sometimes when I get back to our base, I am just lying there thinking and crying.”
Taras’s truck shuttles between frontline morgues and slain soldiers’ families
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Yet he puts on a brave face when greeting other members of the Shield team – part of the Ukrainian armed forces – as well as workers at the morgues and the medics, who retrieve the fallen from the battlefield and transport them to the frontline body-holding facilities.
They exchange greetings and hug.
Asked how he managed to keep smiling when dealing with death every day, Taras said: “It’s hard but we try to find a moment to smile. I call home, talk to my wife, to my children, parents, brothers. After that, my heart is warm and I want to smile.”
At the first morgue we visited with Taras in Kramatorsk, four bodies were waiting, each in a white, plastic body bag, with the name and date of birth of each of the deceased written in marker pen, where known.
The purpose of On The Shield is to return the military dead with dignity to their loved ones.
Working with officials at the morgue, the first two body bags were carefully carried forward and unzipped.
Soldiers must identify the dead at morgues near the frontline before they can be taken away
The face of one of the soldiers had been partially ripped off. A morgue official said the injuries had most likely been caused by an artillery shell.
There was no obvious sign of injury on the second soldier. He looked to be in some kind of frozen sleep. The same morgue official said he had been killed by the blast wave from an explosion. Both men died fending off Russian attacks around the area of village of Bilohorivka in Luhansk, where fierce fighting is raging.
Taras bent over the bodies in turn and took a photograph as part of the trail of evidence.
Identity papers are also checked, such as passports and ID cards.
The bags were then zipped up and transferred to the back of his lorry. Then the next two body bags were brought out.
The date on one of those bags – 8 February 1996 – revealed that the soldier it was holding would have been celebrating his 27th birthday. He was found with a military flag from his air assault brigade unit. The flag was folded up neatly, put into a plastic bag and placed on his torso before the body bag was zipped back up.
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A combat medic, who had brought the dead soldiers back from the battlefield, said it was clear that a new Russian offensive had already started.
“You can sense it because the frontline is not far from here. This is audible,” he said.
Asked whether he was seeing a concurrent rise in the number of dead soldiers being collected, he said: “It is not so relevant because we can’t always retrieve them from the battlefield because the aggressor does anything [to stop us]…
“Those bodies brought here do not reveal the true situation. We only bring the bodies that we can pull out. We can bring some out, but not all of them.”
With four bodies in the back of his lorry, Taras moved to a second morgue in the nearby city of Sloviansk. There, 15 bodies were already waiting to be collected, many in black rather than white plastic body bags. Four more then arrived in two military ambulances.
The body collector and other workers methodically processed the majority of the dead, with help from a young woman called Margo who oversaw the morgue.
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She said the number of fallen soldiers passing through varied by day. The highest number in a 24-hour period was 43.
“It does impact me, strongly,” she said, sitting at a small makeshift desk, where she signs off paperwork for each body.
“When I am taking documents and open them and see the date of birth, my tears are welling up from inside me. It is hard to keep myself composed. It is very hard.”
A military paramedic who gave her name as Lina was at this morgue, having helped retrieve some of the fallen from the frontline. She was in a rush to return to her unit.
“In our direction, it is pretty tense,” she said. “My guys are dying at this very moment and they need my help.”
Lina raced off to a waiting vehicle and left.
For Taras, his next stop was the much larger city of Dnipro, about a four-hour drive north. Two more On The Shield drivers, operating in other parts of the eastern frontline, also had collected bodies that morning and were heading in the same direction.
The bodies are transported to the main Dnipro morgue or two other morgues in the vicinity, where the military has established large, refrigerated lorries to be able to handle the volume of death rotating through.
Forensic experts at these facilities examine each body to determine the cause of death. Finally another member of the Shield unit transfers each fallen soldier to their respective families via recruitment centres in their local area anywhere in the country.
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Colonel Vladyslav, 42, the commander of the whole unit, urged the UK and other Western allies to give Ukraine more weapons and ammunition to bolster their capabilities and reduce the number of future losses they incur against Russia.
“The best men die for this war,” he said, speaking in good English, standing outside the Sloviansk morgue.
“We protect our country – that is obvious – but we do not have as many troops as Russia. Therefore, it’s most important to move on to victory as fast as we can.”
World
Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Man wrongly deported from US to El Salvador has been returned to face criminal charges
A man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration has been returned to the US to face criminal charges.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was charged in an indictment filed in federal court in Tennessee with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US, attorney general Pam Bondi said on Friday.
Court records have shown the indictment was filed on 21 May, more than two months after he was deported from the US under a controversial 18th-century wartime law.
US attorney general Pam Bondi, alongside her deputy Todd Blanche, outlined the charges at a news conference. Pic: AP
In a statement, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Andrew Rossman said it would now be up to the US judicial system to ensure he received due process.
“Today’s action proves what we’ve known all along – that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so,” he said.
Salvadoran Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported from Maryland despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
The indictment alleges Abrego Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
On Friday, Ms Bondi outlined the charges at a news conference, saying: “The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring.
“He made over 100 trips, the grand jury found – smuggling people throughout our country… MS-13 [international criminal gang] members, violent gang terrorist organisation members… throughout our country.
“He will be prosecuted in our country, sentenced in our country if convicted and then returned after completion of his sentence.”
Ms Bondi said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele agreed to return Abrego Garcia to the US after American officials presented his government with an arrest warrant.
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Chris Van Hollen (R) speaks to Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Pic: Press Office Senator Van Hollen/AP
Democrat senator Chris Van Hollen travelled to El Salvador in April to meet Abrego Garcia, arguing his constitutional rights to due process were being ignored.
Critics of Donald Trump have pointed to the deportation of Abrego Garcia as an example of the excesses of the Republican president’s aggressive immigration policies.
US District Judge Paula Xinis has opened a probe into what, if anything, Mr Trump’s administration has done to secure his return, after his lawyers accused officials of stonewalling their requests for information.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura (R) filed a legal complaint over the deportation of her husband. Pic: AP
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Officials responded by alleging that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang – something his lawyers have strongly denied.
In a separate statement, Pam Bondi also attacked what she called the “Fake News Media” and repeated the – yet unproven – allegations against Abrego Garcia.
“The Justice Department’s Grand Jury Indictment against Abrego Garcia proves the unhinged Democrat Party was wrong, and their stenographers in the Fake News Media were once again played like fools.
“Abrego Garcia was never an innocent ‘Maryland Man’- Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker who has spent his entire life abusing innocent people, especially women and the most vulnerable.”
Senior White House officials will meet with a Chinese delegation in London on Monday for the next round of trade talks, US President Donald Trump has said.
The meeting comes after a phone call between Mr Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, which the US president said was “very positive” – lasting about an hour and a half.
Speaking to reporters on Friday from Air Force One, the president added that it was a “good talk”, describing the deal as “complicated”, but one that “will bring us a lot of money”.
He also said: “I get along well with Xi and China.”
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Writing on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the upcoming London meeting “should go very well” and added that treasury secretary Scott Bessent, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer would represent the US at the talks.
It is unclear who will represent China.
The two countries are at an impasse over tariffs and a dispute involving critical rare earth mineral exports, in which China remains the dominant producer.
On 12 May, China and the US struck a 90-day deal in Geneva to pause retaliatory tariffs placed on each other since Mr Trump was inaugurated in January.
The US president said the move was part of a “total reset” in relations.
The agreement prompted a global surge in stock markets and US indexes that were in, or approaching, bear market levels.
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The temporary deal saw the US reduce its 145% tariff to 30% on Chinese goods.
China also agreed to reduce its 125% retaliatory tariffs to 10% on US goods.
However, sector-specific tariffs, such as the 25% tax on cars, aluminium and steel, are still in place.
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The Chinese foreign ministry said the US president initiated the call, and they had asked him to “remove the negative measures” in place against China.
It also said that Mr Trump said “the US loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America”.
This is despite his administration previously saying it will “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the US.
Since Mr Trump’s re-election, the president has frequently issued threats of punitive trade measures against US partners, only to backtrack at the last minute.
World
Gaza marks start of Eid with outdoor prayers in rubble – as Israel warns of intensive new military operations
Israel has issued a fresh warning to civilians in northern Gaza, saying its military is about to carry out intensive operations there.
It comes after Israel said rockets were fired from the area.
Palestinians across the war-ravaged Gaza Strip have marked the start of one of Islam’s most important holidays, amid little hope the conflict will end any time soon.
Much of Gaza lies in ruins, with men and children forced to hold the traditional Eid al Adha prayers in the open air, and as food supplies dwindle.
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Food and aid were blocked from entering the Palestinian territory for more than two months, but a trickle of supplies has been allowed in over the last few weeks.
The UN said it cannot distribute much of the aid, due to the risk of looters and restrictions on movement.
“This is the worst feast that the Palestinian people have experienced because of the unjust war against the Palestinian people,” said Kamel Emran after attending prayers in the southern city of Khan Younis.
“There is no food, no flour, no shelter, no mosques, no homes, no mattresses… The conditions are very, very harsh.”
The Islamic holiday begins on the 10th day of the Islamic lunar month of Dhul-Hijja, during the Hajj season in Saudi Arabia.
It is the second year Muslims in Gaza have been unable to travel to the country to perform the traditional pilgrimage.
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The war broke out after the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants. Some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others were abducted and taken to Gaza.
Hamas is still holding 56 hostages, with a third of them believed to be alive. The rest have been released in ceasefire agreements, with forces rescuing eight living hostages from Gaza and recovering dozens of bodies.
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Situation in Gaza ‘utterly intolerable’
Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in its military campaign, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians or combatants in its figures.
Around 90% of the population of two million has been displaced.
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