DONETSK, Ukraine — Ukrainian POWs in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk began a task Wednesday that strained their hearts as well as their muscles: digging through the rubble to retrieve the bodies of fellow soldiers killed last month in the bitter battle for the city’s airport.
A Ukrainian official said seven bodies in all were retrieved from the once-glittering, now-obliterated Donetsk airport terminal. Rebel representatives said many more soldiers remain buried under the collapsed building but provided no specifics.
One captive soldier saw two friends being pulled out of the rubble, as the facility’s twisted steel beams and smashed cement walls were being sawn into pieces and towed away.
“I recognized them from their clothing. They were my friends,” said the man, a member of the Ukrainian army’s 90th brigade who identified himself as Sasha.
The bodies themselves were contorted by rigor mortis after being left outside for weeks in the frigid winter. Work was interrupted briefly by the sounds of gunfire in the distance.
It was not clear whether the Ukrainian soldiers were forced into performing the recovery work or volunteered, but rebels previously have forced POWs to perform hard labor. The Ukrainian captives were assisted by rescue workers employed by the separatists.
“These guys were fighting here. I don’t know what for. They were following the orders of their president, and they respected that order,” said rebel commander Mikhail Tolstykh, known widely by nom de guerre Givi. “We all are military men here, and we have to respect our enemy.”
Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops had battled regularly over Donetsk’s airport since May, when government forces rebuffed separatist attempts to take the showcase terminal built to help Ukraine host the 2012 Euro soccer championships. Fighting over the terminal surged in mid-January, swiftly unraveling a month-long truce.
