KHARKIV, UKRAINE
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Nastya Gracheva and Anton Sokolov, a young couple from Kharkiv, were working as a nurse and doctor in an oncology clinic.
Since the attacks on Ukraine, the pair have volunteered their services as medics, providing free medical care to people at home and collecting funds so they can purchase medicines for residents in need of treatment.
After weeks of air strikes and shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Gracheva and Sokolov stole a moment to get married, with the bride donning a white dress, leather jacket and flower crown, and the groom a black jacket and white shirt. The ceremony took place at the University metro station in Kharkiv, and along with the couple’s friends and family, the city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, was in attendance.
After the wedding, the couple posed for photographs in the ruined courtyard of a shopping complex in the centre of the city.
Gracheva and Sokolov are just one of more than 4,000 Ukrainian couples who have chosen to marry during the war, stealing what rare moments they can to create some joyful memories amidst the terror. Ukraine’s Ministry of Justice said it represented a show of “spirit and strength of faith”.
“Despite all the horror happening in the city of Kharkiv and in Ukraine, there is a place for love, there is kindness,” groom Anton Sokolov told the TV network, euronews.
Kharkiv is one of the worst-hit cities in Ukraine, and is continuing to face bombing from Russia’s forces.
Zinaida Makishaiva was not too shaken when Russian tanks first rolled into her small town of Borodyanka for the beginning of a month-long occupation. The 82-year-old had, after all, already survived World War Two and the fall of the Soviet Union. However, things soon started to turn frightening when missiles damaged her home, her neighbour was killed by shelling, and Russian troops started making hostile visits.
“Scared doesn’t fully describe how I felt. I felt dead, senseless ... I didn’t have time to bring logs because of the shelling, small and big. That’s how they destroyed all those houses,” she told Reuters.
One day, Russian soldiers stormed into her house and demanded she stay in the cellar. “I told them: ‘Kill me, but I won’t go’,” said Makishaiva.
With food in scarce supply, it was the eggs laid by her chickens that helped her survive. “The doors [of the coop] were blown out. I took the chickens in because I needed something to eat. I didn’t have anything to eat except for potatoes … There is no water, no gas, nothing.”
Since Ukrainian forces reclaimed Borodyanka, Makishaiva has resumed her daily walks – now past abandoned tanks and flattened buildings – to obtain food from the local community centre. She says after many sleepless nights, she is able to rest a little easier. “I’ve been through two wars and now this. I pray that this has passed and the fighting won’t come back again.”