The Corpse of a Russian Soldier, and the Cold but Human Urge to Look
The Russians have abandoned the bodies of many of their troops, a startling practice that flouts a common code among combatants. Does it signal disarray? Low morale? Or was it, in this case, something more personal?

Maybe if he had been popular in the platoon, the guy who picked you up from the bar at 4 a.m. no questions asked, they would have fought to put out the flames. Or at least to get his body, so he could be buried under a familiar sky.

Or maybe it was so catastrophic that by the time the survivors made it to safety and looked around and realized, good god, he’s missing, they knew there was nothing they could do. He was still in there. Trapped.

I’m looking at him, thinking about all this, trying to figure out if that’s his rib cage, listening to the artillery in the distance and wondering if it’s getting closer or farther away.

Husarivka was a speed bump in a Russian advance that failed, leaving the village of dairy farms, and little else, briefly occupied by Russian soldiers — and saturated with Ukrainian artillery fire in response — until the Ukrainians advanced at the end of March.