Key facts
- Oleksii Yukov, head of the body recovery group Platsdarm, died on Aug. 5.
- His wife, Yevheniia Kaluhina, confirmed his death on Facebook.
- Yukov founded Platsdarm in 2014 in Sloviansk.
- The group conducted repatriation missions in dangerous areas of eastern Ukraine.
- Yukov had repatriated over 10,000 bodies of soldiers and civilians.
Oleksii Yukov, the head of the Ukrainian body recovery group Platsdarm, has died, his wife Yevheniia Kaluhina announced on Aug. 5. Yukov, 40, founded Platsdarm in his hometown of Sloviansk in 2014, the same year Russia launched its war in eastern Ukraine. The group became the first volunteer team in Ukraine to systematically search for dead bodies during the Donbas war.
Despite the heightened threat in the current drone-dominated phase of the war, Yukov continued to lead dangerous repatriation missions in areas including Sloviansk and Izium. He had been repatriating bodies for 27 years, initially recovering remains from World War II before shifting focus to the current conflict. Since the outbreak of Russia's war against Ukraine, Yukov repatriated the bodies of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, as well as civilians, despite significant risks.
Volodymyr Rybalkin, the head of Sviatohirsk Military Administration, stated, "Oleksii Yukov will always be in our ranks." Yukov told the Kyiv Independent on Aug. 2 that he had repatriated over 10,000 bodies. Volunteer repatriation work is crucial in the current war, where the increased drone threat makes body recovery extremely dangerous. Without DNA confirmation, fallen soldiers whose bodies are not retrieved are often marked as missing in action (MIA), preventing families from holding burials and finding closure.
Less than two weeks before his death, Yukov posted on Facebook about the importance of repatriation efforts, writing, "Behind every search mission lies someone's soul, someone's prayers and hopes — the hope that a loved one will return from hell." He added, "Here we must remember — as long as we fight for them, each of them has a chance to return!!! And we fight for them together with you, with your prayers and hopes here, in the groves and fields, bringing every soul back home."