Ukrainian volunteers deliver bodies, and closure, to troops' families

Oleksii Lukov 37 examines a fallen Ukrainian soldier’s helmet as his team searches, exhumes and retrieves bodies of soldiers, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Yampil, Ukraine, January 2, 2023. "Black Tulip" exhumes bodies of both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers on the battlefield and trades the bodies of deceased Russian soldiers they find for the bodies of deceased Ukrainian soldiers to return to their families. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

Combing the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, a group of volunteers have made it their mission to search for the bodies of fallen soldiers and return them to their families.

Despite the daily horrors of their work, members of the "Black Tulip" organisation say they believe they are performing a good deed by giving relatives of missing troops a sense of closure.