now to the war in Ukraine no one knows
exactly how many soldiers have been
killed since Russia launched its
fullscale Invasion two years ago in the
chaos of advance and Retreat bodies of
soldiers from both sides are often Left
Behind DW correspondent Yan Philip
Schultz went to see how military search
teams find and identify the dead so
their relatives can bury them I should
mention that some viewers may find the
images in this report
disturbing watch out explosion
Vladimir and his team have come here
close to the front line to find the
bodies of soldiers their work at a new
search site usually begins like this
clearing the area of explosives some of
them booby
traps the Russians usually leave
surprises everywhere they can even be
under dead
bodies it's generally accepted that
hundreds of thousand thousands of
soldiers have died in this war already
many of their bodies still lie here in
the rural areas of eastern Ukraine it
doesn't take long before Vladimir's team
finds
something people here had chickens Ducks
cows and pigs on their Farms when they
had to flee they couldn't take them with
them and abandoned the animals my
experience tells me these are not human
bones a little further South another
team lays out what they brought back
from a search operation they found 10
corpses in a forest much of it was too
disturbing to show
here sometimes the soldiers carried
vital Clues with
them we have a notebook with some phone
numbers here this is probably his
daughter's
contact with this information it should
be easy to establish his identity
even the smallest physical remains can
be enough to identify Ukrainian
soldiers there's an extensive DNA
database we found tiny pieces of fingers
teeth and fragments of all kinds of
bones in the feces of animals if there's
any chance to identify a person we don't
shy away from anything it's important
that everyone is brought back to their
families Alexi says they can tell what
side soldiers who were on from
identifying features like tattoos or
boots these today are probably
Russians they kill us but we remain
human every person should be buried with
dignity back with Vladimir's team many
hours of searching have paid off they've
found the remains of sever several
soldiers based on the location Vladimir
concludes that these are also Russian
bodies he says they might be able to
exchange them for the bodies of
Ukrainian soldiers found in occupied
territory we put them in a bag and store
them later special officers will come
and use them in exchange
processes the volunteers here know their
work gives grieving family the chance to
bury their dead it also gives them
something for the future having an
official Declaration of death makes it
easier for relatives to claim financial
support