- Joined
- Apr 18, 2013
- Messages
- 94,281
- Reaction score
- 82,633
- Location
- Barsoom
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
The lonely funeral of a young soldier in Ukraine
Vadym Yarovenko attended the funeral of his friend Dmytro Kotenko in Lviv, buried far from his hometown of Sumy. He was 21.
RIP/Slava Ukrayini.
Vadym Yarovenko attended the funeral of his friend Dmytro Kotenko in Lviv, buried far from his hometown of Sumy. He was 21.
3.20.22
There was no family around Dmytro Kotenko when they put him in the ground. His parents did not hear the gunshots that rang out over his grave. They did not hear the sound of the ribbon tied to the wooden cross above him as it fluttered in the wind. They did not see the rough earth that first landed on his coffin and they did not lay a flower over him when he was completely covered by the earth. Most likely, Kotenko's parents did not know their son was being buried that day in the Lychakiv Cemetery in Lviv. They were 600 miles away, with his two younger brothers, near the eastern city of Sumy, which was being so heavily shelled by Russian forces that it was cut off from the outside world. Kotenko's parents did know that their son was dead. He died on 26 February, the third day of the Russian invasion, near to the southern city of Kherson. It was his first operation. He was 21. Two days after his death, his parents received a call from his childhood friend Vadym Yarovenko, an artillery soldier, who broke the news. It had taken Yarovenko all night to work up the courage to make the call — a long and restless night on his army bunk in Lviv, alone with the knowledge that Kotenko was gone. They were just boys when they met, all of 15 years old, with fresh haircuts and new uniforms for their first day at military school. When they discovered they were from adjacent villages, it was the beginning of a friendship that might have lasted for a lifetime.
Yarovenko wanted to join an artillery unit but Kotenko's dream was to be a paratrooper. After two years at the academy they were separated — Yarovenko to the western city of Lviv to train for artillery and Kotenko to the southern city of Odesa to train to be a paratrooper. "We messaged each other every day," Yarovenko said. On 26 February, Kotenko stopped responding, and Yarovenko feared the worst. Eventually he reached the commander of Kotenko's unit by phone, who told him his friend had been killed by a mortar shell. "I don't have all the details yet," Yarovenko said. "There was shelling, there was an explosion, Dmytro died." When he dialled the number for Kotenko's parents, there was still a phone connection, and in a short conversation he told them that their son was gone. When he tried to call later about the funeral, the aerial bombardment of Sumy had worsened and the line would not connect. He kept trying but the line stayed dead. So Kotenko's body was brought to Lviv and buried there without them, because the city was safe from falling shells. Kotenko was buried alongside Kyrylo Moroz Volodymyrovych, 25, a paratrooper from his unit, who could also not be taken home. They were laid to rest in a far corner of the cemetery, among the dead from the first and second world wars and the war with Russian-backed forces in Donbas. As Kotenko's coffin was lowered, Yarovenko stood to one side, behind the honour guard that fired the guns. It was the saddest thing he had ever experienced. "I watched my friend being buried far from his home," he said. Afterwards, he stood silently, looking at the grave, the sole mourner left, alone with the gravediggers as they cleared away their tools.
RIP/Slava Ukrayini.