DONETSK, Ukraine – On a bench in a courtyard shaded by large poplars, Tanya takes a long drag of her skinny cigarette and pauses as she holds the smoke in her lungs. Then, enunciating each word slowly with the exhale, she tells me: “They took him.”
The morning of her husband’s disappearance in late May was like any other: he awoke at dawn and dressed in the police uniform she had pressed for him the night before. He wolfed down the breakfast of sausage and salad she had prepared, and then kissed her goodbye.
It was the last time she saw him.
