(Lviv) “My sun, my little one, we are going to win,” sobbed a woman caressing a wooden coffin in the center of Lviv, in western Ukraine. His son, a sapper, was killed by a Russian bombardment near Mariupol, in the south of the country.
Posted at 9:44 a.m.
“His name is Vassyl Vychyvany, he was 28,” the father told AFP, straight back and gray hair, standing in front of the open door of the hearse where the coffin covered with flowers has just been laid by six young soldiers in trellis.
His son was mining the area around a bridge to prevent the Russians from advancing when Grad missiles slammed into the site, killing him instantly, he said.
“There are no bodies in there, just fragments,” said the old man, whose eldest son is also an officer in the Ukrainian army, stationed near the Belarusian border in northern Ukraine.
Several funeral processions are preparing to leave for cemeteries from the Peter and Paul garrison church, a majestic 17th century Baroque building where a religious service has just been celebrated for three Ukrainian soldiers killed in the fighting with Russia.
Inside the church, under the eye of the marble statues, dozens of soldiers and civilians attend the ceremony. Several young women in camouflage, wearing a red beret, hold bouquets of flowers in their hands.
At the head of the three coffins, closed contrary to tradition, six young soldiers, faces of marble, mount the guard of honor holding large wooden crosses and a yellow and blue national flag.
Next to Vassyl are Lieutenant Dmytro Kotenko, 20, and Private Kyrylo Moroz, 25.
Dressed in a red and gold robe, a Greek Catholic priest, the dominant denomination in western Ukraine, waves his censer which releases a little smoke and the smell of incense. His colleague, bottle brush in hand, then sprinkles the coffins with holy water.
“Defenders in the Skies”
Next to it, a monk in a black cassock recites the prayer: “we are accompanying them on their last journey, it is a journey to heaven where they will continue to defend us”, he says.
“We must thank the parents of these heroes who join the mass of our defenders in the skies.”
A white handkerchief in her trembling hand, Vassyl’s mother staggers and a relative supports her by the arm.
“Glory to God, glory to Ukraine,” concludes the priest.
Carried by the soldiers, the three coffins float towards the exit to be greeted outside by three military musicians who play a solemn and sad melody.
Face swollen with sobs, a young woman with long hair, a black cloth headband on her head as a sign of mourning, presses the portrait of a young soldier against her chest.
“Why do they take good people from us, why do they take our children? laments Vassyl’s mother who is going to bury her son in a small town near Lviv.
In the historic cemetery of Lychakiv, in Lviv, salutes of honor ring out in honor of his two comrades under the warm winter sun.
Hand on heart, their colleagues pay them a last tribute to the sound of the national anthem.
Slowly, the coffins are buried next to several other fresh graves in this military part of the cemetery. In front of Dmytro Kotenko’s, a young soldier meditates before leaving, wiping tears from his face.