TUESDAY January 31, 2023: 'UKRAINE Testament' by ZUMA Press Award winning photojournalist Byron Smith. In May 2022, I met Natalya, a mother mourning her son, who is buried at a cemetery in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv. In the weeks prior, hundreds of bodies were exhumed in the area surrounding Bucha. Her son Alexander, 40, was killed as he tried to rescue her while Russian troops entered the city as she hid in an underground shelter. Two weeks after coming out of hiding, Alexander's wife informed her mother-in-law about her son's fate. She said, ''when volunteers found him, he showed signs of torture and had a gunshot wound to the back of the head.'' She is one of the many individuals I met with similarly horrific stories. This is my testimony documenting this senseless tragedy's incalculable costs. The project's title is my take on the original poem ''Testament'' by Taras Shevchenko, whose literary works are considered to be the basis of modern Ukrainian literature and the modern Ukrainian language. ''When I die, then make my grave, High on an ancient mound, In my own beloved Ukraine,'' Taras Shevchenko. Welcome to 'UKRAINE Testament'
© zReportage.com Story of the Week #874: TUESDAY January 31, 2023: 'UKRAINE Testament' by ZUMA Press Award winning photojournalist Byron Smith. In May 2022, I met Natalya, a mother mourning her son, who is buried at a cemetery in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv. In the weeks prior, hundreds of bodies were exhumed in the area surrounding Bucha. Her son Alexander, 40, was killed as he tried to rescue her while Russian troops entered the city as she hid in an underground shelter. Two weeks after coming out of hiding, Alexander's wife informed her mother-in-law about her son's fate. She said, ''when volunteers found him, he showed signs of torture and had a gunshot wound to the back of the head.'' She is one of the many individuals I met with similarly horrific stories. This is my testimony documenting this senseless tragedy's incalculable costs. The project's title is my take on the original poem ''Testament'' by Taras Shevchenko, whose literary works are considered to be the basis of modern Ukrainian literature and the modern Ukrainian language. ''When I die, then make my grave, High on an ancient mound, In my own beloved Ukraine,'' Taras Shevchenko. Welcome to 'UKRAINE Testament'

Buses arriving from the Ukrainian-Poland border offload refugees fleeing the Russian assault on Ukraine in Przemy, Poland. Many women and children don't know where to go. Many have left their husbands, sons and fathers, behind as they fight the Russian military invasion.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A couple comfort each other as buses coming from the Ukrainian-Poland border offload refugees fleeing the Russian assault on Ukraine. Many women and children don't know where to go. Many have left their husbands, sons and fathers, behind as they fight the Russian military.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Foreign IDPs fleeing Ukraine line up to board a train to Poland at the Lviv central train station. Less than one week into the war of Russian aggression in Ukraine, 1 million refugees have left their homes. In the second round of talks, both countries agreed to create a 'humanitarian corridor' and a potential ceasefire to allow more refugees to flee.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Ukrainian IDP children look out of the window of a train headed to Poland at the Lviv central train station in Ukraine.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

An elderly lady with a cane is helped as IDPs flee Irpin on foot across a damaged bridge. After intense fighting in the suburban area of Kyiv, the Russian military prepares to make further advances to take the Ukrainian Capital. More than 2000 residents have fled by way of coordinated evacuations.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A cross hangs from a rear view mirror inside a cars shattered windows as IDPs flee Irpin. After intense fighting in the suburban area of Kyiv, the Russian military prepares to make further advances to take the Ukrainian Capital. More than 2000 residents have fled by way of coordinated evacuations.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A Russian tank and its ammunition, captured by Ukrainian forces, sit at an abandoned Russian post on the highway that links Brovary, a suburb of Kyiv, to the Ukrainian capital. Days prior, a column of these tanks was ambushed in a Ukrainian artillery attack forcing them to turn around. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Colonel Andrei Zakharov, commander of the tank regiment, was killed in the ambush.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

The body of a civilian is evacuated on a gurney from Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has seen heaving fighting in the third week of the Russian invasion.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Refugees of all ages flee Irpin. After intense fighting in the suburban area of Kyiv, the Russian military prepares to make further advances to take the Ukrainian Capital. More than 2000 residents have fled by way of coordinated evacuations.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A group of Ukrainian IDPs who fled Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has seen heaving fighting and shelling, arrive at an area before the destroyed bridge into the city during in the third week of the Russian invasion.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

People pass destroyed vehicles scattered along the roads as IDPs flee Irpin. After intense fighting in the suburban area of Kyiv, the Russian military prepares to make further advances to take the Ukrainian Capital. More than 2000 residents have fled by way of coordinated evacuations.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has seen heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops, is riddled with bodies of both civilians and troops. The body of a civilian which looks like it was hit by artillery. During this time of year it is cold enough to be a morgue.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that has seen heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops, is riddled with bodies of both civilians and troops. The body of a civilian which looks like it was hit by sniper fire. During this time of year it is cold enough to be a morgue.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A group of humanitarian volunteers, who were aiding fleeing refugees, and journalists are forced to take cover in a ditch on the side of the road as an incoming Russian artillery barrage strikes an area near the bridge that links Kyiv to Irpin. The area has seen intense fighting during the third week of the Russian invasion.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

YELENA HERHEL, is consoled over the body of her husband ARKADIY YASINSKY, a civilian killed by Russian forces at a military checkpoint in Stoyanka, a village west of Kyiv, during funeral services in Kyiv.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

NATALYA mourns the death of her son Alexander, a 40-year-old real estate agent in Irpin Cemetery. According to her, he was killed while he tried to rescue her in Irpin as Russian troops entered the city as she hid in an underground shelter. Two weeks after coming out of hiding, Natalya's daughter-in-law informed her about her son's fate. She said when volunteers found him, he showed signs of torture and had a gunshot wound to the back of the head. According to the Irpin mayor, about 300 civilians and 50 soldiers were killed before the town was taken back from Russian forces.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Sunday mass in a church that was once situated on the front line and subsequently sustained damage from Russian shelling in Chernihiv.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

After coming home from summer camp, Ukrainian 'tweens' look at a apartment block hit by a Russian airstrike from the roof of a building they explored also shelled by Russian munitions in the center of Chernihiv.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Sunbathers on the boardwalk in Odesa. Local authorities monitor after at first forbidding swimmers from entering the Black Sea beaches due to the fears of mines.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Locals gather for an early morning swim at a beach in Odesa before local authorities arrive for their morning shift. It was prohibited to swim in the water due to the potential for mines in Odesa.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Forensic workers take a break as they exhume more than 430 victims of war and place them in body bags as Ukrainian police and war crimes teams with the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office continue exhumations of unmarked graves in Izium.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Forensic workers exhume more than 430 victims of war and place them in body bags as Ukrainian police and war crimes teams with the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office continue exhumations of unmarked graves in Izium, liberated on Sept. 10th after more than five months under Russian occupation.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A blue colored bus stop in Kharkiv region is defaced with the Russian 'Z' symbol after the area spent more than five months under Russian occupation.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Ukrainian police officers from Uman provide security as Orthodox Jewish pilgrims perform an atonement ritual at the bank of a lake formed by the Umanka River. Thousands of Hasidic pilgrims, mostly men, arrived in Uman to mark the new year. Uman contains the burial site of a revered 18th-century rabbi, Nachman of Breslav, and in a typical year might see tens of thousands of pilgrims for Rosh Hashanah. Fewer are expected this year, amid warnings from Israeli and Ukrainian officials to not travel.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A Ukrainian girl trains at one of the main training facilities for biathlon and Nordic sports in Ukraine in Chernihiv. Before the war about 300 kids were regularly training and many athletes lived at the facility.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Near the front lines of Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, soldiers with call signs 'Raven' left, and 'Gun' wait during a morning lull between firing rockets from a Grad launch system at Russian targets as the Armed Forces of Ukraine push into Kherson oblast.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

NIKOLAI IVONAVICH, 71, who received food and aid from government employees, stayed in Kupiansk, which was liberated from Russian occupation by Ukrainian forces two months ago.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Special Forces members of the 130 battalion spend time together making dinner after returning to their base for the night during service on a frontline position in an area in the Kharkiv Oblast region.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

Five kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian special forces soldier with the 130 Battalion out of Kyiv sleeps in amid artillery and heavy weapons fire with his squad at a safe house. The previous day he and his team provided 'security' to enable a mining squad to carry out their mission between the Ukrainian and Russian frontlines.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

VITALIY SAYANIN was held for 103 days and subject to beatings and interrogation inside a torture chamber with 150 other men and women run by Russian occupiers in the district police station of Kupyansk.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A female soldier with the callsign 'Lagertha' talks about being a woman in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and how she has modified and uses the SPG-9 on frontline positions against Russia from a base located somewhere in Kharkiv Oblast.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A Ukrainian tank moves between positions in Kherson Oblast which was recently liberated on September 12th after eight months.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A Ukrainian combat medic leads a soldier out of a frontline clinic after he witnessed the death of his commander on the operating table as he was being treated for shrapnel wounds to the head and chest during a Russian artillery attack in Bakhmut, in Donetsk Oblast.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A surgeon codenamed 'Raindrop' left, checks the vital signs of a Ukrainian infantry soldier as he is treated for wounds sustained from a Russian artillery attack in Bakhmut at a frontline stabilization clinic located outside of the city. 'Raindrop' said this soldier will be ok.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire

A Ukrainian soldier stands guard at the site of a rocket attack in Kyiv. 10 hours to midnight. Explosions from a barrage of Russian missiles rock the Ukrainian capital on a subdued New Year's Eve. The rockets damaged a hotel and residential areas killing at least one.
© Byron Smith/ZUMA Press Wire