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During the War in Ukraine, a Military Orchestra Has a Key Task

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Three gunshots rang out as an honor guard fired into the air over the snow-covered cemetery. Soldiers lifted a Ukrainian flag from a coffin and handed it to family members. Then a trumpet, accompanied by a drum, bid farewell to the fallen soldier.

After playing a Ukrainian version of taps, the two musicians from the military band walked slowly away, leaving the mourners to grieve.

“Unfortunately, we cannot raise them from their graves, but we can play taps,” Maj. Oleksandr Holub said of the daily visits that members of the band he conducts make to the cemetery, where hundreds of new graves have been dug for Ukrainian soldiers.

Over the three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Ukraine has experienced tremendous losses. In an interview published last month, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that at least 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the war and that more than 350,000 had been wounded, figures that are widely seen as underestimates.