On the edge of embattled twin cities, an uncovered mass grave for civilians grows.

A mass grave on the edge of this eastern Ukrainian city remains uncovered. Dirt mounds and yellow-petaled weeds surround a pit filled with a dozen or so body bags. They reek of death in the warm summer wind.

The dead are civilians who were killed by shelling in recent months in the cities of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk and the nearby town of Rubizhne. They are heaped together because there are no relatives to claim and bury their bodies.

Standing above the grave, Pvt. Sergiy Veklenko, 41, explained why the bodies were still exposed: “All of our machinery that we had in the city’s inventory — excavators and all — was given to the army for digging trenches.”

As the war grinds into its fourth month and Ukrainian and Russian casualties mount well into the thousands of dead, it is clear that the trenches also have become graves for many soldiers. Read more

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