Ukrainian border guards patrolling the border with Russia thought they had already seen it all: Russian troops, smugglers, humanitarian convoys heading to Ukraine without permission.
However, border guards were stunned after they stopped a car late on Oct. 23 with two men transporting a dead woman’s body – sitting on a back seat buckled up with a seat belt. The incident occurred at the Hoptivka checkpoint in Kharkiv Oblast, some 20 kilometers from the Russian border.
“The relatives were trying to transport the corpse of a woman from Russia to Ukraine, pretending she was a living person,” Oleh Slobodyan, the spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service, told the Kyiv Post on Oct. 24.
Only after the border guards realized that the woman was actually dead did the driver, a Russian citizen, explain that the woman was his wife, who died on Oct. 22, and show them her death certificate.
“Together with his son, the man was trying to transfer the body in order to bury his wife in Zaporizhzhya Oblast, where the family used to live until they all went to Russia for seasonal work,” Slobodyan said.
“The woman died and her family wanted to save money on properly transporting the body from another country.”
According to Ukrainian law, a Ukrainian citizen who dies in another country can be transported to Ukraine only in a closed coffin. Their relatives must have a death certificate and a special permit signed by a Ukrainian consul.
The Russian border guards at the corresponding Russian checkpoint, Nekhoteyevka, were apparently fine with this method of repatriating a body, and the car had passed through the Russian checkpoint without any problems.
In line with standard procedure, Ukrainian police have opened a criminal case on homicide to investigate the incident.
