A Ukrainian soldier’s ashes, delivered by Russian Post: how families bring their dead home to occupied Ukraine
Rita managed to send the ashes of one of her stepsons, a Ukrainian soldier killed at the front, to his mother in Russian-occupied Luhansk so she could bury him at home.
Less than a year later, another of her stepsons was dead.
Mykhailo was only 26. He had been fighting for Ukraine since 2018 and died in November 2024. Once again, Rita began calling funeral services, looking for a way to bring his ashes to his mother in occupied territory.
This time, she was told it would cost several thousand euros.
“Neither I nor Mykhailo’s mother had that kind of money,” Rita says. “In the end, his ashes were buried in Khmelnytskyi, where I live as an internally displaced person.”
Behind stories like theirs is an extraordinary funeral logistics network stretching across several countries. Ukrainian funeral companies say they can transport human remains through Poland, Belarus and Russia before they eventually reach relatives in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
In some cases, the final leg of the journey is handled by Russian Post.
A Business Few Want to Discuss
To find out how the system works and how much it costs, hromadske contacted around 15 funeral services and asked whether they could deliver the ashes of a Ukrainian service member to occupied territory.
Most said they could.
When the reporter identified herself as a journalist and said she was working on an article, however, most declined to continue the conversation.
Only two funeral company managers agreed to explain the process in detail. Hromadske is identifying them as Danylo and Mykhailo.
Danylo’s company transports the ashes of civilians but refuses cases involving Ukrainian soldiers because of the risks. Mykhailo says his company has transported ashes to occupied territories since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014, including those of military personnel.
Danylo’s company uses a route through Moldova. From Chișinău, the ashes are flown to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport before continuing toward occupied parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
In theory, he says, the same route could be used for the ashes of a Ukrainian soldier.
In practice, he would not recommend it.
“When you are traveling with cargo like that into occupied territory, where Russian military authorities are now fully in control, how much would someone have to pay you to do it?” he says. “You could try at your own risk. Maybe conceal something, leave something unsaid, pay someone a bribe. I think it could be done. But what’s the point? It’s not worth the risk.”
Hiding the Soldier’s Identity
Transporting human remains across international borders requires death and cremation certificates and other documentation. But those documents do not necessarily identify the deceased as a member of Ukraine’s armed forces.
A medical certificate may list a cause of death such as shrapnel wounds or blast trauma. The death certificate subsequently issued by Ukrainian authorities, however, records the place of death rather than whether the person was a soldier.
That creates room for funeral companies to avoid drawing attention to the deceased’s military status.
“We try to smooth over the fact that this is specifically a service member,” Mykhailo says.
There are risks even after the ashes reach occupied Ukraine. A grave belonging to a Ukrainian soldier could be desecrated, while relatives could face persecution by the occupation authorities.
One way of reducing the danger, Danylo says, is to bury the ashes discreetly in the grave of another relative rather than publicly identifying the deceased as a Ukrainian soldier.
Kyiv, Warsaw, Minsk, Russia - Then Back to Ukraine
Mykhailo’s company, registered in Ukraine and Poland, uses a route it says has been refined over years: Kyiv - Warsaw - Minsk - Russia - Russian-occupied Ukraine.
The company prepares the necessary documents in Kyiv and transports the sealed urn to Warsaw. Belarusian partners then take it to Minsk.
From there, Mykhailo says, there are several options.
“We can send the ashes from Minsk to Donetsk or Luhansk through Russian Post - they provide a service for transporting ashes,” he says.
Alternatively, Belarusian partners can take the urn to a location inside Russia, where another group collects it and delivers it to relatives in occupied Ukraine.
Mykhailo says his own employees never enter the occupied territories. Neither do the company’s Belarusian partners. The final stage is handled by people operating locally.
Russian Post does not provide the service in smaller occupied towns, he says. Relatives may therefore collect the ashes at branches in Donetsk or Luhansk, or in Russian cities such as Rostov-on-Don or Kursk. Local intermediaries can then take them onward - as far as occupied Mariupol or Melitopol if necessary.
The route has evolved since 2014, when crossings through places such as Stanytsia Luhanska and Marinka were still possible.
“When you work, solutions to problems somehow emerge,” Mykhailo says. “You try once, twice, three times. You figure out where the difficulties are, how customs and consulates react, who needs to do what - and eventually it works.”
He says Russian Post treats urns as special cargo and normally does not open them.
Once, an urn was damaged in transit and had to be replaced. The ashes themselves were unharmed.
“Usually everything works smoothly with Russian Post,” Mykhailo says.
When International Law Meets Occupation
The logistics expose an unusual legal paradox created by Russia’s occupation. For Poland, the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - as well as Crimea - remain legally part of Ukraine.
That means Polish authorities cannot simply issue transit documents describing the journey as one from Ukraine to occupied Ukraine: legally, that would amount to transporting human remains from Ukraine to Ukraine.
Yet the physical route may have to pass through Poland, Belarus and Russia to reach a Ukrainian town under Russian control.
Funeral companies therefore have to navigate the laws of several countries, consular requirements and customs rules while operating in a situation for which there is no ordinary legal procedure.
“There is simply nothing in the rules about occupied territory,” Mykhailo says.
The Price of Coming Home
Transport can take five to six weeks.
The price depends on the destination and how much of the process the funeral company handles - from cremation and paperwork to transportation itself.
According to Mykhailo, bringing ashes to occupied territory can cost between €900 and €3,000.
Some families may be tempted to avoid the bureaucracy altogether and pay an informal carrier to hide an urn in a van crossing several borders.
Mykhailo strongly advises against it.
If the driver encounters a border inspection, he says, there is no guarantee the urn will not simply be abandoned. And without proper documents, even ashes that reach their destination can create legal problems for the family.
The result is a peculiar underground geography of war: a journey through countries and borders to return someone to a home that, under international law, they never left.
For Rita’s first stepson, that journey was possible. His mother was able to bury him in his native occupied Luhansk region.
For Mykhailo, it was too expensive.
His ashes remained in Khmelnytskyi, hundreds of kilometers from the home where his mother had hoped to bury him.
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