Lviv, Ukraine – Anastasiya Buchkouska, a 20-year-old student from western Ukraine, gently brushes away layers of snow and ice from her father’s grave.She pauses, looking up at the photograph fixed to the gravestone. His face bears a striking resemblance to hers.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listWhen her father was younger, he had served in the military. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, he was called up almost immediately and sent to the front line.Contact with the family was sporadic at best. They clung to brief messages and fleeting signs of life until one day in September 2022, everything fell silent.For seven months, he was officially listed as missing. Buchkouska said she held on to hope, though deep down she feared the worst.When confirmation of his death finally came, grief hit hard, but amid the demands of war, she said she had little choice but to “deal with it”. Anastasiya Buchkouska in Lviv, Ukraine, January 26, 2026 [Nils Adler/Al Jazeera]Her uncle was killed around the same time.She focused on caring for her grandmother, who was often inconsolable, inventing topics of conversation and small activities to distract her.In quieter moments, Buchkouska broke down into tears but tried to remind herself not to “overthink things”. This was war, she thought, and it would do her no good to wallow in grief.The human tollAt Lychakiv Cemetery in the western city of Lviv, where Buchkouska’s father is buried, the surge in deaths in early 2022 forced authorities to allocate additional space beyond the cemetery’s walls …
