David Pratt from Ukraine: A family's grief as soldier laid to rest

Among them are elderly ­women, head-scarfed and bowed with age. Some are of a generation old enough to ­remember wars and oppression of the past that have gripped this part of Europe.

Stocky, surly-looking men, cigarettes dangling from their lips and some ­clutching bunches of yellow and blue flowers, also join the gathering alongside a two-line-deep rank of Ukrainian soldiers dressed in camouflage combat fatigues.

One of the soldiers carries a flag, while another holds a framed portrait ­photograph of the fallen comrade they have come to honour and lay to rest. The uniformed man in the picture wearing a beret looks out almost quizzically as if surveying those that have mustered. "Why are you here?", his expression seems to ­suggest.

Soldiers carried a framed portrait and flag

It was on March 14, in the eastern Ukrainian town of Lyman that sits in the Donetsk region, that 32-year-old ­Volodymyr Rurak was killed in action in one of the most fiercely contested areas of the war here.

Unlike many young Ukrainian men and women recently thrust into the ­unexpected maelstrom of frontline duty against the Russian invaders of their country, Volodymyr was no stranger to battle. He had been a soldier since 2018 and was even given a presidential award for his bravery and service ­fighting in the ­eastern Donbas region against ­pro-Russian ­separatist forces there. On his social ­media account there is a picture of him in a snowy landscape wearing white winter camouflage clothing and cradling a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

It’s an image in stark contrast with the suited, bow-tied and flower-wearing ­figure and much happier man giving a loving kiss to his bride Tanya, a local Lviv ­council worker, when they married in 2020.

Even happier times were to follow with the birth of a daughter who now, one-and-a-half years old, fidgets in her mother’s arms, toys with a plastic necklace and occasionally drinks from a carton of juice, oblivious to her father’s funeral and the outpouring of emotion around her last Friday.

Mourners knelt alongside Volodymyr Rurak's widow Tanya and their daughter

Out of the sunshine it can be chilly here in Lviv at this time of year. It was in these bitter shadows that Tanya and her ­daughter knelt in the cobbled street outside the baroque Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church alongside other ­mourners as pallbearers carried Volodymyr’s coffin slowly past and into the basilica. Almost all those assembled knelt, while some made the sign of the cross and both men and women cried openly.

Kneeling as a mark of respect for fallen soldiers in Ukraine has become ­commonplace ever since the turbulent days of the 2014 Euromaidan protests that rocked the country.

Sparked by the then Ukrainian ­government’s decision to suspend plans to sign an association agreement with the ­European Union (EU), and lean more ­towards Russia, the instability would eventually lead to pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas deciding to go their own way.

But all that was before last month’s full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that shocked the world and brought pain and loss to countless people – ­including Tanya Rurak and her daughter. Those gathered outside the church realised all too well the price this family and so many others have paid across Ukraine.

Mourners have kneeled as an act of respect for fallen soldiers since 2014

“We have come here to this church too many times, and who knows how many more times we will come to honour those who have given their lives, but we will continue to come until free from Russia and Putin,” one young woman mourner called Alina insisted, standing with her sister and mother outside the church, holding a basket of flowers as they waited for the funeral cortege to pass.

That they didn’t know Volodymyr ­Rurak personally was of no consequence, they said. “He is Ukrainian and one of us, a hero of our nation, that’s all that ­matters,” Alina added.

Inside the church, the wooden coffin was laid to rest on a plinth adjacent to aisles where portrait pictures of the many others who have died and passed through this church line the walls.

The modernity of those depicted in the photographs sits in strange incongruity next to the sculpture and ornate ­decoration of the church’s interior in a city famous for its architecture and being one of Ukraine’s main cultural centres.

The coffin was taken into the ornate church

Almost every other day here now, at 11, such funerals take place. The ­bodies of those killed often take days to arrive, ferried from frontlines far to the east, as was the case with ­Volodymyr Rurak.

If, as Russian president Vladimir Putin insists, the “second phase” of this war will concentrate on the Donbas region, then doubtless the funeral ceremonies of many more soldiers who were natives of western Ukraine will take place under the high decorative roof of Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church in Lviv.

Like Volodymyr Rurak, their coffin will be carried on the shoulders of their ­comrades, some tearful, out into the street where a brass and drum ensemble will play as the cortege moves back down across the smooth, worn cobbles to a waiting hearse.

Like Volodymyr too, most will be taken to the military memorial of the city’s historic Lychakiv Cemetery, the most ­famous cemetery in Ukraine. There, fresh graves garlanded with flowers and ­simple dark wooden crosses mark the most ­recently interred, while those just dug in preparation for forthcoming burials lie eerily in wait.

A cross bearing Volodymyr's name was placed alongside his coffin

Nearby sit more permanent ­gravestones marking those who have died during the eight years of battles that have gripped parts of eastern Ukraine, a fact that until Russia’s recent full-scale ­invasion was often seemingly forgotten by the rest of the world.

“It’s a reminder that we have been fighting the Russians and their allies far longer than people think,” says Maksym Koval, another of those who had come to pay their respects at Volodymyr’s funeral, though he too never actually knew the young soldier personally.

“I’m too old to fight, but the very least I can do right now is show my gratitude to those who can and have,” said the 76-year-old former car mechanic.

Tanya, flanked by her mother and holding her toddler

In a ceremony before the burial, ­Volodymyr’s mother, flanked by Tanya and her own mother, are presented with the Ukrainian flag that adorns his coffin by a soldier from his unit. It is a profoundly emotional moment that brings Tanya to another flood of tears, this time impacting even on her toddler daughter who until that moment seems blissfully unaware of the family’s grief.

Tanya, with her mother's arms around her and her child in her arms

As the coffin is lowered into the ground, the first of a three-shot volley rings out from a nearby honour guard, causing some around the graveside to wince ­involuntarily. In what for the close ­family must seem like an interminably painful duration, the gravediggers shovel soil, ­filling the grave as Tanya – daughter in arms – leans forward for a last look at the coffin that holds her husband.

Time passed slowly as the gravediggers worked

It is a terribly painful and poignant ­moment among many that morning. One that will indelibly etch itself into the memories of those who were there that day. Perhaps too it will be recounted years from now by a mother to a daughter grown up and able to understand what ­became of her father and the sad events of that otherwise beautiful spring day back in March 2022.

The coffin was lowered into the grave

As the mourners file past the ­graveside, each in turn touching the cross that sits at its head, it was left for Volodymyr ­Rurak’s own mother – the carefully folded ­Ukrainian flag she had been presented with from her son’s coffin still draped across her arm – to have her own solitary moment of reflection and grief.

Just a few yards away, next to a grave close by, another mother and wife whose son and husband had been buried here in Lychakiv Cemetery a few days earlier had returned to kneel by the place where their loved one now lay.

Reaching out to pick up her son’s framed photograph that sat among the floral tributes, the mother holds it to her breast before kissing and replacing the picture. Here again yet another ­family ­riven apart by war just like countless ­other families across Ukraine and in ­Russia too, as a result of the inexplicable political ambitions of Vladimir Putin and some around him.

Mothers mourned over graves in the cemetery

Where this war goes from here ­remains anyone’s guess. Perhaps Putin has ­finally realised his regime has bitten off more than it can chew in the shape of Ukraine’s fierce resistance, resolve and ­determination to remain democratic and free from the shackles of ­dictatorship.

Perhaps the Russian leader will ­continue his next “phase” of the war in the Donbas and east, in which case the carnage will continue and bodies will pile up. In the meantime, he just might out of sheer anger and frustration try to lay waste to even more Ukrainian cities as the Russians already have in places like Mariupol, Kharkiv and elsewhere.

An image taken during an earlier part of the ceremony

Casualty numbers and death tolls are among the most elusive figures in ­wartime with all sides seeking to underreport their own losses, while embellishing ­enemy casualties. One thing certain in this ­conflict so far though is that thousands of combatants have died on both sides.

As for civilians, the UN says that an ­inability to confirm casualty counts amid ongoing fighting means the actual figures are likely much higher than even the worst-case estimates. All agree the toll is horrific – and that’s before factoring in the trauma inflicted upon individuals and communities alike.

Here in Lviv, many of the city’s citizens barely take notice of the almost daily air raid sirens that echo across town. But mid-morning, almost daily, they continue to pause and line the cobbled streets outside Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church and gather in the Lychakiv Cemetery. There they pause to say goodbye to those they love. Those that have fallen in battle defending their homes and land. Those like Volodymyr Rurak.