In the village of Kamianka in Zhytomyr Oblast, they were supposed to say goodbye to those who died in the war with the Russian invaders fighter Kostyantyn Kozlovets. However, the previous evening, a funeral home was brought to his parents’ house, and when his relatives saw the soldier’s face, they were shocked, because it was a military serviceman they did not know. Until the last, they hoped that their Kostya was alive and an unfortunate mistake happened, but within a few hours, the morgue employees confirmed that there was a confusion and, unfortunately, the body of the defender is also in their possession. Currently, the family of 29-year-old Kostyantyn Kozlovets is preparing for the most terrible day in his life and asks everyone who cares to help identify the soldier whose coffin was brought home.
Read also: “When I was blown up, I immediately realized that I would no longer have legs, because everything was torn to shreds”: the war story of a paratrooper from Lviv
– We still cannot believe what happened. Our family has already had to go through many trials in recent years, until here again grief, – told “FACTS” Roman Marinchuk, a relative of the deceased. — Konstantin is my wife’s brother. A few months ago, he decided to go to defend the country from the invaders, he already had experience in the army, because he was in military service. He was called from the village of Kadomka in the Kyiv region, where he lived with his mother from an early age. In January, the training ended and the soldiers were sent to the east. Kostya was the commander of the airmobile platoon of military unit A0641.
The last place of service is Belogorivka, Luhansk region. On April 25, we last spoke with Konstantin. We knew it was hell because of the heavy shelling, so we asked him to be careful and pray. He replied that it was really difficult and added: “I pray. When it is announced on the radio that there is a departure, I fall to my knees and ask God to save me. And in seconds, a mine flies near the dugout and does not explode.” I have this audio recording. More than once Kostya shared with us that the Lord protects them. But this time, unfortunately, it didn’t work out. As far as I know, the occupiers bombed their position and they dug in elsewhere. Probably, it was necessary to go for provisions. And at that time, the Russian military intercepted the Ukrainian fighters and covered them with mortars. Several soldiers were wounded, and there were also victims.
“Mom cried and kept repeating “This is not my son”
– How did it happen that they brought a domino with another soldier to your house, and how did you survive it?
– On May 1, at 10 o’clock in the morning, my wife, who only two months ago gave birth to a daughter, was informed about the death of her brother from the Military Commissariat of Obukhov District. They asked if the mother was alone at home, to which the wife replied that she was. They asked where dad was, she said that he died a year ago. We asked to wait until we arrived at my mother’s, because she simply cannot survive such news alone. Moreover, on that very day it was 30 years since the wife’s parents got married, so one can only imagine the state of the mother who mourned her beloved husband every day. Already when my wife and I were on the spot, the staff of the military commissariat arrived and announced the sad news for us, handing over a notification to the family about the death of a soldier. Screams for the whole village, pain, tears.
Read also: “Burnt baskets with bees lay next to the bodies”: details of the death of two friends in the Mykolayiv region
The first thing that alarmed us was that they brought incorrectly prepared documents, which we simply refused to accept and told to redo. They did it. Then we were asked where the deceased would be buried. Our answer was that in my homeland, next to my father in Zhytomyr region. Military Commissariat officials noted that the body is in the morgue of the city of Dnipro and that it will be brought and buried the next day. We wanted to make sure if it was really our Konstantin, we were told that the grave would be opened and it was definitely him. All relatives were informed, the next day the body was not brought. After that, I was told that the body would be brought on May 5 at 6:30 p.m.
.jpg)
The whole village was waiting for the funeral procession. People knelt, laid flowers… They put up a portrait, lit candles. Almost everything was ready for the burial – bought wreaths, ordered a loaf of bread, a ring, because he was unmarried. It remained only in the morning to dig a hole in the cemetery. When the coffin was brought into the house, of course, as relatives, we wanted to see our Konstantin. The house was opened, and the face was covered with a handkerchief. When her mother picked her up, she became hysterical. She cried and kept repeating “This is not my son.” Everyone who was present at that moment said the same thing. Kosta’s face is of a different shape, he is bigger in stature, his hair is not the same, his teeth… We called a medical examiner to the scene, to whom we gave all the explanations.
Read also: “You go home, and your son’s body is in the trunk”: heartbreaking stories of two women from Vinnytsia
It is hard to imagine what happened to us. Because different thoughts swarmed in my head – God forbid they did not recognize our Konstantin, or gave him to another family, or even buried him in another city. Is he alive at all, wounded, or in captivity somewhere. Because everything happened during the war years! Therefore, we had hope until the last.
“I wrote a post on the social network, because I understood that this unknown warrior was also waiting”
Meanwhile, I wrote a post on my page in the social network, because I had no right to remain silent. I understood that this unknown warrior is also someone’s son, brother or husband… That he is also waiting, perhaps not knowing that he is no longer there. And each of our heroes must be brought home and buried with honors. And the resonance did its job. Quickly responding to the post, the morgue workers from Dnipro informed me that a terrible mistake had occurred, and they have no idea what we went through. According to them, they have an unidentified body and sent his photo to my wife. She recognized that it was our Kostya after all. Nearby was his wooden cross, the clothes he wore, although he had grown a little beard in the war. But the facial features and build are his.
— Where is the house with the still-unknown fighter now?
– They came from the morgue and took her away. We do not know where they were taken. But we really want people to help us identify this hero as soon as possible.
We are waiting for our Kostya to bury him. I created a petition to award him the title Hero of Ukraine posthumously, because he was in advanced positions, 100 meters away from the enemy. He did not leave them until the last and courageously repelled the enemy troops.
At the beginning of 2022, our family experienced a terrible grief. Mykola Kozlovets, the hero’s father, died. As a member of the 72nd separate mechanized brigade, he defended the independence of Ukraine since March 2014, the sergeant major of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was awarded the Order “For Courage” III degree. But on December 28, 2021, he, being a passenger in a car, got into an accident and died in the hospital a few weeks later.
Earlier, “FACTS” told the story of a servicewoman who died in the bunkers of “Azovstal”: “I was informed that there is a DNA match and it is my mother.”
225
Read us on the Telegram channel, Facebook and Instagram