Love in time of war; Ukrainian soldiers get married while off-duty

29-07-2023
Dilnya Rahman
Dilnya Rahman @dilnyarahman
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KYIV, Ukraine - Eleven months after his injury during a battle in war-torn Bakhmut, Bogdan Poshelujny, a Ukrainian soldier, tied the knot with his girlfriend, Kateryna Posheljuna, two years after being in a relationship.

Wheelchair-bound Poshelujny, 34, and his fiance Posheljuna, 38, registered their marriage at a licensed marriage agency in Kyiv over the weekend.

"Our plan for the future is to build a house, be happy and raise our children," Poshelujny, who has sustained serious wounds in both his legs, told Rudaw.

Dmytro Kurovskyy, 29, is another off-duty Ukrainian soldier. Now that he is home, he has seized the opportunity to tie the knot with his girlfriend Ilona Dragomyretskak, 29,  who met each other for the first time a year ago when the latter had served as a volunteer at a hospital on the frontlines in eastern war-zone regions of Ukraine.

"We do not want to hold a big wedding party. We just want to do a small thing," Kurovskyy, who returned three weeks ago and has to go back to the frontlines in Bakhmut after five days, told Rudaw.  

There are 12 government-licensed marriage registering agencies in Kyiv, according to Viktoria Juk, deputy head of a marriage registration agency in the city.

Juk says in the first seven months of 2022, almost a thousand individuals registered their marriages in the city. The seven months of 2023 saw 1,300 registrations.

"Most of the marriage registrations were recorded before the war," Juk said, adding that "After the war broke out, the numbers significantly dropped.”

"However, marriage registrations are currently very good compared with last year. We reopened our center just three weeks after the war started. In the beginning, only the couples used to come without inviting any relatives and close associates. Currently, everything is way better," noted Juk. 

Clashes have currently intensified over the past few weeks as Russia has been pounding Ukrainian eastern port cities and their grain infrastructure.

Taras Vysotsky, Ukraine’s first deputy minister of agriculture, told Rudaw on Wednesday that Russians constantly attacked Ukraine in the last week, causing damage to up to 100,000 tons of the country’s wheat.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry claims it has retaken seven square kilometers of territory from Russian forces in the direction of Bakhmut in the past week.

Ukraine has requested the United States provide it with the Patriot missile defense system to protect itself against Russian projectiles. Earlier this year, around 100 Ukrainian soldiers traveled to the US for training on defense systems.
 

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