
The surgeons leaving the operating room don’t make eye contact. One of them holds up his hands. Another looks down, defeated. It’s then that the father waiting at the doorway grabs his forehead, tears welling, and turns away, a wail about to escape his throat.
The man, identified only as Serhii, enters the room and finds his 16-year-old son, Iliya, is still and draped by a blood-stained sheet.