The guns had gone quiet after three days of fighting in Balakliia. Mariya said only when she saw Ukrainian soldiers did she know six months Russian occupation had ended. "I was walking ... when I saw an armored personnel carrier coming onto the square with a Ukrainian flag: my heart just tightened up and I began to sob." At the site of one exhumed grave, Valentyna, the mother of 49-year-old Petro, cursed the war and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "No one can return my son to me." Tymofiyeva said it had been clear Russia, which invaded Ukraine, planned to annex...
