Thousands of Ukrainians gathered in central Kyiv’s Cathedral of Saint Volodymyr on Saturday to bid a final farewell to Oleksiy Yukov, the 40-year-old founder of a volunteer organization dedicated to recovering the remains of fallen troops and civilians from Ukraine’s war zones. Yukov, who died in a landmine detonation during a recovery operation on August 5, spent more than 20 years honoring the dead by bringing their remains home for proper burial — including those of enemy Russian soldiers.
A native of the conflict-scarred Donbas region, Yukov first began his life’s work as a teenager, when he stumbled on the unclaimed remains of Soviet and Russian World War II soldiers. Before dedicating himself full-time to recovery work, he worked as a martial arts instructor, but he soon committed fully to his mission: every life deserves a dignified burial, regardless of which side a fighter belonged to.
In 2014, after the outbreak of full-scale conflict in Donbas, Yukov launched the volunteer NGO Platsdarm, which translates to “bridgehead” in English. Over the years, he earned the reverent nickname “the collector of souls” for his tireless, high-risk work. Platsdarm’s teams venture into mine-laced terrain, from abandoned fields and dense forests to bombed-out urban ruins, to locate and retrieve the remains of the dead, a mission that puts volunteers in constant danger of explosive blasts.
Yukov already survived a catastrophic mine incident in 2022, which left him with permanent leg injuries and cost him an eye. Even while recovering from those life-altering wounds, he returned to the field to continue his work. In a social media post shared just weeks before his death, Yukov laid out the harsh reality of his mission, acknowledging that every outing carried grave risk. “Remote mines, shelling, drones — everything is against you. But you go and do everything to ensure that every soul returns home,” he wrote.
He pushed back against critics who argued that the remains of Russian soldiers should be left unclaimed to rot. “When they say: ‘Let them rot,’ I do not agree. This is how we fight for every soul,” Yukov wrote. He framed his work as a deeply moral and spiritual calling, writing that every fallen body is a soul waiting to return to its home. “This is action,” he noted of his daily work. “Action every day in the fields, in the forest belts, among the ruins, where your life can end at any moment.”
Saturday’s Orthodox Christian funeral service drew crowds of mourners who came to honor Yukov’s legacy of radical compassion amid decades of ongoing war in Ukraine.