Hardest Job in the Ukraine War: ‘Hand Delivering’ Death Notices to Kyiv’s Fallen Heroes

Key Points and Summary – A Daily Telegraph profile of Ukrainian Army Maj. Serhiy Laziuk highlights the grim reality of Ukraine’s “forever war.”

-Laziuk’s job is to personally deliver death notices to the families of fallen soldiers, a “never-ending task” as casualties mount.

Switchblade Drone. Image Credit: Industry Handout.

-This personal toll is set against a backdrop of a desperate need for soldiers; with almost no one left volunteering, Ukraine is resorting to press-gangs.

-Over half a million fighting-age men are believed to be in hiding, fearing a war of attrition that has no end in sight. As Lviv’s military cemetery is already full, the sense of despair deepens for a nation entering its fourth winter of war.

The Hardest Job in the Ukraine War 

London’s Daily Telegraph has covered the war in Ukraine comprehensively from the very first days of Russia’s February 2022 invasion. The late David Knowles had been on staff at the paper for two years when he and several of his colleagues launched a five-days-per-week podcast called “Ukraine: The Latest.” The podcast still runs, and the paper has published thousands of stories on the war.

Each workday, the podcast and the Telegraph website present the latest developments.  Stories on the podcast often add detail to what is found in the pages of the Telegraph, and other staff writers sometimes appear as guests. They try to give the audience an overview of the situation on the battlefield, or a look inside specific Ukrainian cities and behind the scenes of Russia’s political circles. Much of the time, it starts as a wide-angle view then zooms in on meticulously reported stories.

Today’s Telegraph edition discards the wide angle altogether for an up-close and personal look at a side of the war not often examined. An article titled “The man with the worst job in Ukraine” profiles the daily tasks of Ukrainian Army Maj. Serhiy Laziuk.

His unit is the Territorial Center of Recruitment, and Laziuk’s job is to visit the homes of relatives of any soldier killed in action to inform them they have lost a son or a husband.

Maj. Laziuk tells the paper that he always delivers his bad news to the dead soldier’s relatives face-to-face.

Russian T-90M Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

“The hardest part is when people still have hope,” he told The Telegraph. “They think maybe there’s been a mistake.”

Part of his job at the recruitment center is to mobilize men of draft age to be trained and sent off to fight. But he is also the officer assigned to return dead soldiers back to the morgue, inform their relatives, and then accompany them to the cemetery for the burial.

Casualties and Those in Hiding

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last updated casualty figures in February. He stated that more than 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed to that point. However, independent assessments by Western military analysts state much higher figures.

The problem is an old story. The Ukrainian military desperately needs replacement soldiers. Ukrainian law says that all men between the ages of 25 to 60 are obligated to complete a term of military service. But according to the military recruitment and mobilization authorities, there is almost no one still left who will volunteer for service.

The Ukrainian military has therefore been forced to mobilize replacements, frequently press-gang-style by pulling people off the streets or dragging them out of bars, nightclubs, or restaurants. Ukraine has about 3.7 million men of fighting age who have not yet been mobilized. Military officials say they believe more than half a million of them are in hiding to avoid being sent to the front.

Peace talks have produced nothing in the way of progress, and massive Russian drone and missile bombardments are Russian President Vladimir Putin’s message to all Ukrainians that he has “no intention of ending the war,” writes the paper’s staff. Military experts generally agree.

The Forever War in Ukraine

“It is no wonder so many are still in hiding,” said a Ukraine military services volunteer I will call “Igor,” who often visits the front and who spoke to National Security Journal. “With the war showing all the appearances of one that could last forever, no one wants to be in the military. They see this as a ‘fight until you die’ situation. There is no hope, no end in sight for as long as Putin still rules in Russia, and they know it.”

Igor relates some of the horrifying episodes he has seen at the front. One young soldier he recalled was working with some munitions when one of the rounds went off in his face.

“The soldier was made blind in both eyes by this accident,” he told me. “Now he will never see again. He cannot be of use to anyone, or even care for himself. And who can help him now? Only his mother. What does he do when she is gone? It is too terribly sad and depressing to think about.”

When I put down the phone after speaking with Igor, who is back in Kyiv, I am left with a deep sense of despair.

The Telegraph article about Maj. Laziuk ends with him standing in a crowd at Lviv’s new military cemetery. He is attending the burial of two soldiers whose relatives recently identified at the morgue. A new cemetery had to be built, because the old cemetery filled up with gravesites shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. Putin’s killing machine made sure there was no space left.

Shahed Drone from Ukraine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The major tells the Telegraph reporter that he feels his role of delivering death notices to the families of the fallen is a never-ending task. Before the war life was different, he says. His job was to prepare contracts for a firm of architects.

“Most of us wish tomorrow we could go back to the life we had before the war began,” Igor told me in a conversation some time ago. “But with a delusional maniac like Putin as the dictator of Russia, it feels like this day will never come. This war destroys the lives of everyone—the living as well as the dead.”

Will I Ever Return To Kyiv? 

As people like me who used to live in Kyiv now enter into the fourth holiday season as refugees, we ask if we will ever see a Christmas and New Year again at our homes. A holiday season when there are no drone attacks, no missile strikes, no air raid sirens, no plumes of smoke on the distant horizon from a distant, burning apartment building, and no funerals of those killed in the latest attack.

Until that day we—like Major Laziuk—also fear that the current situation has no end.

About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson

Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.

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