Ukraine war: How two mothers retrieved their dead sons from the battlefield - BBC News

With little help from the military to bring the soldiers' bodies home, two mothers took charge themselves.

11 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingRelated TopicsRussia-Ukraine warImage caption, Lyudmyla Kupriychuk travelled to enemy territory to retrieve her son's bodyBy Anastasiya Gribanova, Ivan Yermakov & Claire PressBBC World ServiceThis article contains details that some readers may find distressing.

Lyudmyla Kupriychuk stood crying in a muddy field. Her ex-husband was wrapping their son's body in a blanket.

"I was hysterical," she explains. "I said: 'Are we just going to drive him home in the boot of the car?'"

"My ex-husband yelled at me: 'Calm down, we just need to get out of here'."

The divorced couple had bought an old Mercedes and travelled hundreds of kilometres. They were behind enemy lines to retrieve the body of their dead Ukrainian soldier son and now they were ploughing through fields in Russian-occupied territory pockmarked with shell craters.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64431524?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

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