In a military cemetery in Kyiv, hundreds of crosses mark the graves of unknown Ukrainian soldiers.

Each cross bears the words "unknown defender of Ukraine" with an ID number.

One grave now has a photo attached: Ihor Yalynych, a soldier missing since 2022.

His children, Stanislav and Oleksandra, found him after four years of searching.

Ihor Yalynych was killed in April 2022 in eastern Ukraine.

His body lay in occupied territory until September 2022.

The family faced bureaucracy and a lost police file, which delayed DNA testing for over two years.

Stanislav gave a DNA sample six months ago, and a match came two months later.

Ukraine buries unidentified soldiers because refrigerated storage was full before the national cemetery was completed.

More than 300 unknown soldiers now lie there.

Veterans Affairs Minister Natalia Kalmykova said the state holds the flag of each unknown soldier until identification.

Three of the first buried as unknown have since been identified.

Identification is slow because many soldiers gave no DNA samples early in the war.

About half of Ukraine’s troops have now given samples.

Over 40,000 samples from unidentified bodies have been registered, and most have been matched with relatives’ samples.

Forensic experts say the work will continue long after the war ends.