In the western Ukrainian village of Verkhnya Bilka, the first local hero killed in Russia's war is being laid to rest and, as is the custom, the community will join a procession to honour him, to pray for his resurrection and to help his family say goodbye.
Bogdan Lazar, 51, was one of 35 people killed last Sunday when a Russian air strike hit a military training base in Yavoriv, just 20 kilometres from Poland.
The war hadn't been this far west, and the attack sent a signal nowhere in the country was safe.
For Bogdan's family and village, the war came home.
His funeral is being held just two days after he died and it begins outside the house he lived in with his wife and two children.
In a small laneway, Bogdan's casket is positioned on kitchen chairs — his devastated wife lain across it. Her hands stay clasped to her face for most of the day.
Over the course of an hour, about 400 villagers line up to pay their respects and to leave offerings of money in plastic shopping bags.
Prayers are said, psalms are chanted and as the last person files past Bogdan's casket, an air raid siren sounds. No-one moves or takes shelter, the war can wait.
The crowd has absolute reverence for this moment and for this ritual.
From here the body will be moved to the village church — a 15th-century masterpiece that has seen war before.
The custom in some eastern Christian faiths is for mourners to move with the body, praying as it travels from home to church and then to the place of interment.
For believers, this journey represents the spirit's ascendancy to God.
Bogdan's casket is placed into the back of a van and with the doors open, it forms part of the parade, moving through town.
As he walks, village leader Vasil Koval explains there were 22 people from his community at the military base last Sunday and Bogdan was the only casualty.
"Bogdan was a good family man, father and manager. This is a person who has never been negative," he said.
"This is a man who could not use weapons very much, but took up arms and went to defend his homeland."
Vasil is walking a few steps behind the grieving family, eyes fixed on them: "Bogdan's family is now my family."
As the village walks down the hill towards the church, those still in their homes or front yards stop and drop to their knees to pray.
Surrounded by chickens, in fields or on dirt roads, everyone prays.
There is one call to action repeated across Ukraine: for Western forces to install a no-fly zone across the country.
From President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to displaced women with babies on their hips to a village leader burying his friend, the message is the same.
Close the sky and Ukrainians will, as they say, "take care of the Russians".
Vladimir Putin has said such a move would be seen as participation in the war and Western leaders have repeatedly ruled it out, saying it risks starting World War III.
Today, in this small village, the price of Russia's ability to attack Ukraine from the sky is paid.
The plea is again repeated and issued with a grave warning.
"The world needs to look into the eyes of people who have seen death and fled from death, and then they will understand everything," Vasil says.
"The trouble is still with us, but tomorrow it may be in the world."
The last kiss
After a kilometre, the procession reaches the church and the casket is carried inside. The small space quickly fills around it before mourners spill out onto the street.
Local police have blocked the intersection and the empty van now waits for the final leg of the journey to the grave.
Inside, scripture is read, incense is lit to help carry prayers to God and mourners offer the deceased a "last kiss".
It's part of this ritual that sees everyone again move past the casket, some touching it briefly or leaning down to touch their lips to the Ukrainian flag draped across it.
Just two days prior, Bogdan was fine and this side of the country felt some sense of safety.
But as Europe awoke that Sunday morning, a vital Ukrainian military base was being bombarded with Russian missiles and by the end of the day, 35 people would be dead and 134 would be treated for their injuries.
One doctor said some of the soldiers who died in the attack had been sleeping as the military base was hit.
The total number of Ukrainians who have died since the Russian invasion of this country began can only be estimated.
Figures from the most recent government update say at least 1,300 soldiers have been killed.
The UN estimates close to a thousand civilians have been killed in the war so far, though the real figure is likely to be much higher. Ukrainian authorities say 115 children are among those killed and another 140 have been injured.
In the city of Mariupol, there are mass graves. In the capital, Kyiv, there are documented instances of civilians being gunned down in the street.
Each time a person dies, there is a family and, potentially, a village, left to reckon with the acutely personal price they have had to pay in this war, while doing their best to survive it themselves.
Burying the young
Among the other soldiers killed last Sunday was Volodymyr Datsenko.
He was 20 years old. His wife is pregnant with their first child.
The garrison church in central Lviv has been holding funerals and prayers for fallen soldiers for weeks.
Just one day after the Yavirov attack, young Ukrainian soldiers carry the body of Volodymyr into the church.
As they listen to the prayers for his soul and the sobs of his mother, their faces express shock, sadness, perhaps fear for their own future.
This beautiful gothic-style church is Greek Catholic — a popular faith in western Ukraine.
Father Roman Mentukh only got news of Volodymyr's passing this morning. Now, he is standing in front of his friend's casket asking Jesus Christ to invite him into his house.
"He told a lot of jokes, he was a really helpful person. Every time we asked for his help, he came," he said.
As incense is prepared and Volodymyr — the soldier, "protector" and now "angel" — is prayed for, the bigger story that he is a part of is visible inside the room.
Above his casket, the ancient statues inside the building are being wrapped in blankets to safeguard them and behind him, strangers who know someone else on the front line have gathered.
Father Roman is a military chaplain and has seen too many soldiers buried since the war began.
He talks about giving his friend to God as well as Ukrainians fighting until the end.
"They are really motivated to defend. First of all, I thought I should go and support them, but … when I went into my battalion, they supported me more than I, them," Father Roman says of the young soldiers he meets.
"I understand that we are here in our home and we will stand until the end to defend everything that we love."
In 2 hours, the funeral prayers are over and Volodymyr's body is carried outside, loaded into a van to begin the journey to his home town of Vinnytsia, about 400 kilometres east.
It's such a short, sharp moment of intense sorrow, but it will be repeated thousands of times over.
For those watching on, there is some fear their family will be next.
Praying for peace
Alyona Herez was brought to tears as the priests of Saints Peter and Paul Garrison Church prayed for Volodymyr.
She said she stepped into the church to "pray for peace" and didn't expect to attend a soldier's funeral.
"My father is in the territorial defence unit here in Lviv and my boyfriend is on the front line — at one of the hottest spots, around Melitopol. Frankly speaking, I don't know where he is," Ms Herez says.
Back in Bogdan's funeral procession, Vasil also talks about people he knows in areas of intense fighting, including Odesa and Kyiv.
"I'm very worried about those people. I cannot describe it in words. You will not understand," he says.
And he's right, but what is clear is the collective agony among those who aren't fighting but are forced to bury a loved one who did and the determination among Ukrainians to contribute in the ways they can.
Women who have left Ukraine work to send supplies back in. Volunteers usher displaced people towards shelters. And villagers show up to honour their first fallen hero.
Bogdan's body is approaching the cemetery now. It's just an ordinary field among farming paddocks.
The crowd filters through the gravestones.
The crowd says the Lord's Prayer. It's in Ukrainian, but its cadence is recognisable and, as they make the sign of the cross from their forehead to chest, Bogdan's family is again overcome with emotion.
It's confronting to see the acute pain experienced by one family and one village and know it's playing out thousands of times over across the country.
As the soil around Bogdan’s grave is turned and shovelled onto his casket, the gathering starts to sing the Ukrainian national anthem and village leader Vasil steps forward with some closing comments.
He points to Bogdan's grave and says: "This is the price of not closing the sky. And there will be more."
