Members of the Honour Guard carry a coffin with a body of Denys Antipov, Ukrainian serviceman recently killed in a fight with Russian troops, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 18, 2022.
Members of the Honour Guard carry a coffin with a body of Denys Antipov, Ukrainian serviceman recently killed in a fight with Russian troops, in Kyiv, Ukraine May 18, 2022. Reuters / VALENTYN OGIRENKO

KEY POINTS

  • A Ukrainian mother traveled with her husband to Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine to retrieve her dead son's body
  • Their son had died while defending Kherson, a region that is still under Russian control
  • The mother allegedly had a gun pointed at her by a Russian soldier at a checkpoint but was allowed to look for her son's body

A Ukrainian mother had to travel to Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine in order to retrieve the body of her dead son, according to reports.

Lyudmyla Kupriychuk's son Maksym was killed on Feb. 25, the day after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine.

He died in Ukraine's southern Kherson region while defending his country, U.S. government-funded outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported.

Russia had occupied Kherson in the early days of the war, and most of the region is still under Russian control.

Following Maksym's death, Kupriychuk decided to recover her son's body. Her husband bought a car, and the two drove to Russian-occupied territory at around 4 a.m. on March 4 while a curfew was still in place.

"We drove to the checkpoint. I said, 'Hello,' [to a Russian soldier] in Russian. I said, 'I want to retrieve my son's body.' At first, he pointed his rifle at me, and then he lowered it and said, 'I don't answer those questions here, I'll call my superior,'" Kupriychuk recalled in an interview with RFE/RL.

The soldiers told Kupriychuk to find Maksym, who had tattooed the phrase, "Never give up," on himself when he was 17, and to take his body away, the mother said.

Kupriychuk then witnessed her husband falling to the ground while inspecting a body.

"My husband tore the jacket of [a dead soldier] and then stretched out the arm... and [my husband] fell to the ground. I understood that it was him. It was Maksym. I fell to my knees and screamed," she said.

In a similar story, a Ukrainian mother cried and fell to the ground after her son, a member of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, was found dead in a well in a previously Russian-occupied village near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Around 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers died in the first 100 days of Russia's invasion, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, revealed in early June.

Between 100 and 200 Ukrainian troops were dying on the front line every day, Mykhaylo Podolyak, another presidential aide, said later that month.

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As many as 7,200 Ukrainian service personnel have gone missing since Russia invaded, Oleh Kotenko, Ukraine's ombudsman, said in July.

The majority of them were held in Russian captivity, he said.

A fresh hole is seen ahead of a funeral, among dozens of recent graves of people who have died since the beginning of Russia's invasion, in the Walk of Heroes section of the cemetery, where people who served as military members, fire fighters and police o
A fresh hole is seen ahead of a funeral, among dozens of recent graves of people who have died since the beginning of Russia's invasion, in the Walk of Heroes section of the cemetery, where people who served as military members, fire fighters and police officers are buried, as Russia's attack continues, in Kharkiv, Ukraine, July 2, 2022. Reuters / LEAH MILLIS