Ukrainian Women Are Traveling to the Front Line to Keep Love Alive

Everything happened so fast. On their first in-person date, they went to see a play, and she whispered in his ear, “I think I’ve fallen in love with you.” Soon after, they were married. And shortly after that, he was sent back to the front.

When Damina Serbyn and Roman Myronenko met at a theater in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, last year after a short online courtship, they dreamed of spending their lives together in domestic bliss. But with Mr. Myronenko fighting Russian forces on the front line, that has yet to happen. Ms. Serbyn lives alone, and has to travel for hours every two weeks to see her husband, a deputy commander of a drone battalion based near the northeastern city of Kharkiv.

On a recent cold winter evening, she was on a train rolling into Kharkiv that was carrying other women coming to see their loved ones at the front — a dangerous journey to a city that has come under constant attack by missiles and drones. When the door opened, Ms. Serbyn jumped off the train and into her husband’s arms, kissing him.

When she is away, he does not feel like he is truly living, said Mr. Myronenko, 38. Ms. Serbyn, also 38, is a clerk with the government gas company. “Without her, nothing makes sense,” he said.

As the war drags on, and as Russian forces make steady advances into Ukraine, soldiers are fighting with little hope of being demobilized any time soon and returning home to their loved ones. Many women, determined to maintain their relationships and keep their families strong, make risky trips to areas near the front, often taking children along.

Some travel to places like Kharkiv, which are usually more dangerous than the cities and towns where they live. Others travel to frontline bases, where they are often in even more peril.