The manner in which corpses are gathered in the Ukrainian hamlet of Andriivka has a rhythm.

A house is sprayed with a yellow question mark. The cops come, accompanied by a team, to excavate the shallow grave. The relatives are then presented with their ancestor’s remains.

Remains of a loved one’s body are all they have left, and some are stoic and resigned to the fact that they are gone. Others rush up to the dead, as if to rouse it from its sleep and give it a last push.

In Andriivka, west of the capital, Kyiv, on Monday, AFP spotted the remains of three men in civilian clothing unearthed from gardens.

In accordance with information gleaned from family members, neighbours, and official identification papers, they were Ruslan Yaremchuk (46), Leonid Bondarenko (68), and Yuriy Kravchennia (46).

Three more remains had been discovered earlier in the day, according to a local official.

A month-long northern push by the Russians to seize Kyiv seized Andriivka, a town of around 2,000 people before the conflict.

All of the soldiers were buried by their countrymen, the Ukraine’s own. Villagers, on the other hand, claim that the Russians were responsible for their deaths.

Yaremchuk was buried with his head pointed towards an old, rusting wheelbarrow in the yard of an unassuming white home.

A three-man crew is now prying the corpse from the ground once again, this time with its arms spread wide.

A blue cableknit sweater, pants, and grey hiking boots were Yaremchuk’s last attire. On his right hand, there is a silver ring that looks great.

Although Viktor Haniuk only knew his first name, he buried him on this patch of green with the aid of another neighbour.

Nearby cops scribble reports in the margins of an old diploma that expose his identity while the exhumation goes on. It seems that Yaremchuk attended the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute to study electrical engineering.

There are three open ration packets on the doorstep of the cottage. The packs were dumped for the soldiers as the Russians rushed in.

Haniuk, 42, claims that the suspect “went to take them.” The rations were most certainly the reason for his death.

He said that his neighbour had been shot “behind the ear”. The police squad moves on without Yaremchuk, who is now safely encased in a corpse bag.

Bondarenko is the next player on the list. He was buried in the front yard of a pink home surrounded by spring bulbs. On top of the temporary burial is an ornately decorated crucifix. March 6, 2022 is the date he died.

A blue duvet has been used to enclose his body. His blood-spattered skull is seen as three construction workers lift him from the earth.

Resignedly, Oleksandr, 39, waits outside the house’s gates with a palpable sense of dread.

A few days after the shelling killed his father, a neighbour buried him.

“I’m not sure how we’re supposed to react to anything like this. They razed the whole community to the ground “This is what Oleksandr has to say.

The corpse of his father is the sixth that has been discovered so far, and there are still many more that need to be attended to.

Artem Yeliseyev, a 25-year-old Russian police officer, wonders, “What am I meant to feel when civilians, not soldiers, are killed?”

In the course of the day, he recalls, “we saw a guy who was 30 and a man who was about 70.”

“Both of them have been killed. I find it tough to express my emotions.”

– Yuriy Kravchennia – Kravchennia is buried under a demolished house and may be found there. Olesia, his wife, cries out in pain as he is dragged from the debris.

In the distance, she sees her husband being pulled from the ground, feet first, in an orange-and-brown striped jumper.

His body has been wrapped in corrugated plastic and his face has been painted a ghostly pale green.

Despite her best efforts, Olesia falls to the ground as her legs give up. She stammers through her sadness as she recalls how Yuriy was fatally shot in the street while holding out a surrender sign.

“I’m holding on. I’m holding on. I’m sobbing today since it’s been 41 days since he was last here. I’m at a loss if he doesn’t return.”

Her 53-year-old neighbour Tetiana Yermakova rushes to her aid.

Moreover, she is a widower. She and her husband Igor are buried in the garden next door. In a protracted hug, the ladies lean against one other.

Ludmyla Oleksiyenko, Igor’s sister-in-law, claims that Russian forces kidnapped him on March 2, according to her. He was discovered near the electricity pylons two days later.

Other Ukrainians had received his messages informing them of the Russians’ presence.

“Besides mentioning that someone was laying there, they didn’t say anything else. ‘Go check it out for yourself,’ they urged “Oleksiyenko, at the age of 63, remembers.

A rope was used to bind his hands, she said. “You couldn’t see through it. This person’s hands were dyed a dark blue. In the shadows.”

“My sister and I dragged it across the street to this yard. We had to remove the corpse in order to bury it. The two of us worked together to excavate the pit. That can only be described by a lack of words.”

In the rear yard, he is buried in a huge pile of muck.

It is now strewn with ammo boxes where he was buried as Russians excavated the gaping pit.

If the villagers can find the power to move the soil, his corpse will be the seventh of the day.

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