The four soldiers lay in the grass, sleeping bags and cans of food, some opened, scattered around them. Beneath nearby trees, their cars were smashed and torn by shrapnel. The men had been dead for months.
This region of rolling fields and woodland near the Russian border was the site of fierce battles for months during the summer. Only now, after Ukrainian forces retook the area and pushed Russian troops back across the border in a blistering counteroffensive, has the retrieval of bodies scattered across the battlefield been possible.
