As Russia’s full-scale invasion grinds on through its fourth year, the city of Lviv is confronting a grim new reality: It is running out of room to bury its fallen soldiers.
This week, for the first time since 2022, Ukrainian soldiers killed in the conflict will be laid to rest in a new burial area within the grounds of the city’s historic Lychakiv Cemetery.
The existing Field of Honor — established shortly after the invasion began — has reached capacity. The city council says another burial site will soon be announced, as Ukraine still does not know how many more soldiers remain unaccounted for, how many bodies await identification, or how many will eventually be returned by Russia.
The first bodies of fallen soldiers were returned to Lviv within weeks of Russia’s assault.
In March 2022, the city began burying them at the Field of Honor on land formerly known as the Field of Mars, a site once frequented by local adherents of Soviet nostalgia. Historical records show that along with Red Army soldiers who died in wartime hospitals, Soviet secret police officers — some involved in repression of local communities — were buried there as well.
To create a memorial for modern-day Ukrainian soldiers, the city exhumed and relocated the earlier remains, establishing a dedicated space for those killed in the war against Russia. At the time, it seemed large enough, but now it no longer is.
For many families, it has become a painful and familiar place. Anna Karashetska visits the grave of her only son, 25-year-old paratrooper Mykhaylo, almost every day. He defended Kyiv, Irpin, and Bucha in the first days of the war. Wounded once, he returned to his unit before being killed. He was buried in June 2022.
“When my son was buried, I thought the war would end soon and we would win,” she says. “Back then, this place felt small, just two sectors. Now the graves stretch on and on. I know the face and story of almost every soldier here.”
The Field of Honor, says Svitlana Miskiv, another mother of a fallen soldier, has become a cemetery of the young: Portraits of young, healthy soldiers stare out from each grave.
Svitlana adds that she felt fear when she learned the cemetery had reached its limits. “It’s terrifying…. I had hoped this would all end soon, but there are many who still must be laid to rest,” she says.
Aerial footage and images taken over the past year show how rapidly the burial grounds have expanded. The official number of Ukrainian soldiers killed remains classified, but in Lviv, the scale of the loss is visible row by row.
Officials say they had anticipated the need for expansion and had identified another area on the former Hill of Glory, also part of the Lychakiv Cemetery.
Once a Soviet memorial site, it contained the remains of Red Army soldiers, partisans, and Soviet secret police officers. The city administration has since removed the Soviet monuments and exhumed remains were reburied elsewhere.
“We have removed every stone that could remind people of the totalitarian occupation of Lviv,” says Yevhen Boyko, chief of staff at Lviv’s city administration. The newly cleared area is now ready to receive the graves of Ukrainian soldiers, he says, calling it a necessary “tactical” solution.
The first burial at the new site took place on December 11, when Captain Andriy Kyryzyuk, born in 1991, was laid to rest.
But the city is preparing for the long term as well.
“We are working on a strategic solution: a much larger burial ground for the community,” Boyko says. “Anyone who has given their life, health, or strength for Ukraine deserves to be honored properly, not only now, but in the future.”
