With his lips tight and a distant look buried deep under his camouflage bucket hat, Serhii Velychansky wanders through the forest of yellow and blue flags at the military cemetery in Berkovetske, close Kyiv. He stops in front of the grave of a smiling young boy. “This is Anton. He went to war with his father, who was besides killed. Now they are both reunited here.”
Serhii talks about the mines, the phosphorus bombs, and the memories of his 8 brothers in arms buried here, but he inactive struggles to find the words to describe his war. “No civilian can realize what we went through over there,” he whispers. The 50-year-old spent almost 3 years in the 130th Territorial Defence Battalion.
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