A Ukrainian Family's Torturous Quest To Find Missing Loved Ones
Nina Melenets, 62, stands outside her destroyed home in the village of Kamyanka, on the outskirts of Izyum, in the Kharkiv region. She recently returned home to organize the funeral of her eldest son, Oleksandr, 44, who was killed earlier in the conflict.
Nina Melenets' surviving son, Mykola, 37, gave DNA samples to forensic experts in order to match the bodies exhumed from a mass grave in Izyum. The day after Mykola visited the DNA lab, the remains of his missing brother Oleksandr were identified.
Mykola Melenets walks through Oleksandr's destroyed home. He has been trying to piece together what happened to his brother and their father, Serhiy, 62, who has been missing since late March.
Nina Melenets shows an old photo of Oleksandr on her phone from 1997, when he was doing military service in Bakhmut.
They fled their home on March 21, when the Russians took control of the area and allowed them to evacuate. Serhiy and Oleksandr decided to stay to protect their homes and help others get out.
A few days later, a shell struck close to Oleksandr's house and killed him.
A child's drawing of a tank is seen among the debris in Oleksandr Melenets' home.
The Russian troops who found him asked local residents who he was and covered his body with a tarpaulin. Villagers later buried him on the spot. Serhiy Melenets went missing at about the same time.
Nina reacts as she looks at the spot where her son, Oleksandr, was killed.
In October, when Ukrainian forces marched back into Kamyanka following a counteroffensive, Oleksandr's body was exhumed and taken to the recaptured city of Izyum, where it was stored.
In early November, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office set up a temporary mobile laboratory for DNA testing in Izyum to help relatives identify their loved ones.
The mobile DNA laboratory was provided by the French government.
The day after Mykola Melenets (right) visited the DNA lab, his brother Oleksandr's remains were released from the morgue in Izyum. Mykola wrote his brother's name on a cross for his grave.
Nina Melenets cries as she waits for the delivery of the coffin containing her son.
On a dank, misty morning under a flat gray sky, the group walks slowly behind the coffin of Oleksandr Melenets along a path through the overgrown grass and scrub, careful not to tread on "butterfly" mines that litter the ground.
Standing in a cemetery marked by craters, Nina Melenets cries over the coffin of her son Oleksandr as Mykola looks on.
The thud of distant explosions can be heard as Mykola Melenets comforts his mother and Oleksandr's coffin is lowered into its final resting place -- nearly seven months after he was killed.
"It will be easier for our hearts if they match the DNA," she tells Reuters in Izyum, where she had rented a small house for a few days. "We will know where [my husband] lies," she adds. "We spent 44 years together. We spent our whole lives together."
"Thank you, Russia," Nina says as she surveys the devastation of her village before heading back west, where she and Mykola have settled. "This is the gift you give us."