It took Vadym Bobryntsev 4 days to bury his spouse, he mentioned. It was the center of March in Mala Rohan, a village close to Kharkiv in japanese Ukraine, and the bottom was frozen. The village was below occupation by the Russian military, so Vadym went out periodically from their shell-damaged home to dig in a far nook of the backyard shaded by apricot and quince timber. After 45 years of marriage, 69-year-old Vadym, alone, lifted his spouse Iryna into a makeshift casket, folded her fingers over her chest, lowered her into the grave, coated the casket with a corrugated tin sheet, to guard her, and stuffed in her grave with earth.
