On February 25, forensic investigators in a morgue in Vinnytsia, in west-central Ukraine, pored over the tens of bodies they had been delivered. The last of them – smaller, lighter than the rest – was in a white sanitary bag with the inscription “NM SPAS 757” scrawled in handwriting. The acronyms spelled out a coded message, in Russian: “Unnamed Male, Extensive Damage to the Coronary Arteries, [Body Number] 757.” When investigators opened the bag, a second one nestled within it, this one black.