Editor’s note: Warning: This story contains disturbing images.
Brashkivka, Ukraine CNN —
Before the war, Leonid Bondar, in “Red Army” attire, reenacted major Soviet battles of World War II—where they were fought, who won them, and who died where—all facts he knew intimately.
His work at the Museum of War History of Ukraine took him across the country to recover the remains of fallen soldiers of World War II.
On today’s battlefields, Bondar’s skills are an integral part of the contested nation’s war effort as she withstands Moscow’s invading forces and finds and brings home Ukraine’s fallen heroes.
He’s a humble man who downplays his role, saying he’s doing it for the families of the fighters and for the country.
By the end of August, the Ukrainian military acknowledged more than 9,000 dead; A month later, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that 50 soldiers were dying every day.
Originally named “Home on Your Shield,” Bondar’s unit was founded in part on the myth that Spartan mothers two and a half millennia ago told their warriors, “Come back with your shield…or on it.”
The CNN team meets him on a damp, cool, windswept ridge above the now-powdered village of Brashkivka in eastern Ukraine, where undulating fields of rotting unpicked crops stretch darkly to distant forests.
A barn of yellow stone overlooks the scene he intends to unravel; Its two windows are framed in weathered wood, while a shell punched a hole in the wall.
It was a great vantage point and one hell of a place to defend. The destroyed cell phone tower behind the bunker, where the Ukrainian soldiers probably died, would have been an excellent marker for enemy artillery. Six are missing and presumed dead.
The place is a silent reminder that war is cruel and robs the living of their lives and their loved ones of peace. Every battlefield has a place where wasted time is buried, where colors fade and stories wait to be told in the final seconds.
In the battle that took place four months ago around the ridgeline at Brashkivka, the tiny field next to the cell tower and barn is that location.
Bondar and his two colleagues are the first soldiers to search for the fallen since Ukrainian troops retook the area from Russian forces six weeks ago.
The video found by the soldiers Bondar shared shows happy moments before their stories stop. Sunbeams penetrating the wood and mud roof of their basement bunker, just a few feet from the cellphone tower, hint at the danger they were in.
The roof wasn’t strong enough to take a direct hit, Bondar says. In an early assessment of the site, he suspects that two of the men were likely blown out of the bunker by the shell blast, the others likely buried by fallen masonry and dirt inside.
Before they can test this theory, they thoroughly search the site for mines and booby traps. Bondar shows CNN one of the dreaded anti-personnel mines: it erupts from a protective cylinder, stands on thin, vulnerable legs triggered by nearby movement, and is lethal at a range of 15 meters.
Once the location has been declared safe, Bondar’s quest begins, telling the soldiers’ stories and revealing some of his worst fears.
Metal hinges and screws from wooden ammo boxes, mixed with bone splinters, lie in rusting, charred heaps a few yards from the bunker.
Bondar suspects that the bodies hurled by the blast were burned by the Russians, not buried. This, he says, is “not the first time we’ve encountered a situation where the norms of humanity are neglected and soldiers are not given proper burials.”
A few meters away, partially hidden in the tall grass that grows all around, lies a human spine and pelvis. For Bondar, the heat-bleached bones are exactly what he was looking for, and he carefully places them in a heavy, white plastic body bag.
His rubber-gloved fingers scour the dirt for every fragment, each piece a source of DNA and potential comfort to grieving families. He spots a ring and loudly thanks the fallen soldier for helping him identify himself.
Meanwhile, his teammates have been shoveling crumbled rock and accumulated dirt out of the bunker in hopes of finding the other soldiers.
Small fragments of bone suggest they’re in the right place looking for three or possibly four soldiers huddled or blasted at one end of the bunker, but it’s too early to know.
It’s hard work. Bondar and his team have removed their jackets and are shoveling debris over their heads and out of the collapsed bunker.
As they work, other Ukrainian soldiers approach and tell the team they spotted a lone dead Russian soldier in a burned-out vehicle about half a mile away.
The body, found burned and charred in the back of a wrecked infantry fighting vehicle, is also carefully lifted into a white body bag. The Russian’s whereabouts, even the vehicle’s VIN number and other details, are carefully recorded. His body is treated with the same respect as that of Ukrainians’ own fallen compatriots.
Back in the bunker, as layers of earth are slowly removed and shovels swapped for small trowels and tiny pickaxes, the outlines of three soldiers emerge, broken and pressed against the red brick bunker wall. Hints of knees and heads, then hunched shoulders, one hand still clutching a gun.
“You can come home now,” Bondar whispers as the first corpse is freed and gently placed in the waiting white bag.
They check the pockets of the second soldier dug out of the mud, a lanyard in his breast pocket, along with an ID card. He was 32 years old when he died. “Thanks for helping us,” Bondar says to the corpse.
As we leave, a body is still missing, but Bondar vows to keep looking. The only certainty here is that as long as the war rages on, his work will be far from over.