"No one promised that this would not happen to our men. People die in war." Community for the widows of the fallen

“I have met thousands of people on this planet, and there is no one like Vova”

“We had a very good life. When we met, it felt like it would last forever. We were relaxed with each other,” Oksana Borkun from Irpin tells about her beloved Volodymyr Hunko. Despite the deep grief that physically fills the room even through a phone conversation, this woman radiates love. It is so thick that you can touch it.

Whatever the lovers were doing — planting flowers, rescuing cats, or traveling around Ukraine every weekend — was easy. Because they were the same. They were even born on the same day, April 23.

“I have met thousands of people on the planet by the nature of my work (Oksana worked as a director in various companies — ed.), and there is no one like Vova. This is not an exaggeration,” the woman sighs. “In 2014, as a volunteer, he went through Ilovaisk and Shyrokyne and was held captive for four months. He was beaten, but he sang Ukrainian songs. He had a negative attitude towards companies that do not pay taxes, so he was looking for a job with an official salary. He did not pass by unjust things that destroy the state. He was able to sue and help everyone in need. He knew how to make friends, and all his friends were fans of Ukraine, all of whom went to serve. He loved animals, and when he saw children... he just dissolved. But we didn't have time to have our own,” she says, her voice full of pain. “Vova reassured me that everything was ahead”.

On February 24, he took Oksana to Uzhhorod and returned to his guys. He was sent to the presidential regiment, but he wanted to go to the front line.

“I'm rotting here,” Volodymyr said.

He was constantly looking for opportunities to transfer. And finally, he got it after learning about the death of his companion. So in the summer, he got to Bakhmut. And in a week he was killed.

Oksana felt that this would happen. She told Volodia that she didn't want to be in the world without him. He scolded her, saying that she had no right to think that way. Three days before the tragedy, she felt like a rock crushed her chest. She couldn't breathe.

And then it turned out that three floors had fallen on the man: two missiles hit the basement of the plant where the Ukrainian servicemen were sleeping. A precision hit: 7 dead, 12 wounded. It looks like the point was given up by the locals. The companion who pulled Volodia out confirmed that it was definitely him, his death was instantaneous.

The woman hung up, went to the field, and screamed. For a very long time.

The funeral service for Volodymyr Hunko, 33, was carried out in the overcrowded St. Michael's Cathedral. Friends, relatives, comrades-in-arms, and countrymen said: “The best Vova of Ukraine is dead.” They took him home to Vinnytsia Oblast for burial, and in every village, a human corridor of people on their knees greeted him on the way to his native Obodivka.

“I have never seen so many people come. In general, I don't remember much about that day or the next two months,” Oksana admits.

She quit all her jobs and allowed herself to grieve for a while. But a community of widows appeared on Facebook, where she has been contributing 24/7 for the past three months.

Oksana and Tetiana Vatsenko-Bondareva are the founders of the group. At first, it was a small, closed community so that no one would disturb them with their comments and inappropriate advice: “Let it go”, “Hold on”, “Don't worry”, or “You'll find someone else”. For women who have lost their husbands, this devalues their grief.

“Society does not want to hear this, it wants to hide such things as far away as possible. It urges us to get out of this state as soon as possible, but it doesn't happen that way. Each girl has her own story and her own pace: some have found a body, some are looking for it, some have buried their loved ones, and some don't know how they died or whether the wrong person was buried. We try to make the group a comfortable place. So that everyone can share and know that they will not be judged,” says Oksana.

In addition to therapeutic care, lawyers from the community help to arrange payments after the death of a husband. So far, only a few have received money due to bureaucracy. There is also a human factor: relatives are suing for inheritance.

Oksana told the story of a woman with cancer and two children who was suspended from work. After her husband's death, his mother showed up, who had sent her son to an orphanage 20 years ago, and never cared about him. But she came to the funeral with a claim: “Where is my money? I am his mother.”

There are also difficulties in families where the relationship between a man and a woman is not legally formalized. Even if there are children, it is necessary to prove in court that this is a family.

Lawyers, doctors, accountants, volunteers, and psychologists help the widows in the group. Oksana Borkun writes posts on social media and shoots videos that get millions of views. After each video, 20-30 women are added to the group. Humanitarian aid from around the world is also increasing.

“I'm continuing my husband's good deed; he always gave children gifts on St. Nicholas Day. So here I am. I just scaled it up,” the woman smiles for the first time during the conversation. “It gives me strength, my body recovers. And I feel that there is a legion of kindness up there helping us. And Vova is among them.”

“The war brought us together, and the war separated us”

Nadia impressed Andrii in 2014, at a course for civilians who decided to learn infantry military skills. She was beautiful in her uniform, her red hair fluttering, “pretty as a flower”, he said later.

He said hello, but she ignored him. The offended boy did not approach her for three months. Until Nadia asked him to teach her how to walk quietly in the woods. That's how they began to communicate during the course. And after that, they sat on the stairs near the Kyiv circus and talked. They were both consciously preparing for the great war.

She and Andrii Lytovchenko, who is four years younger, went to the east as medical volunteers as a couple.

Then Nadia answered playfully: “Let's try, maybe it will work out.”

Andrii cut her off: “Only seriously. If we date, I'll think of you as the mother of my future child.”

It was only in Donbas that she realized what kind of person she had met: in 30-degree frost, he got up every hour at night to warm the cars that transported the wounded.

He proposed after two rotations when they had already been living together. He brought a bouquet and a box with a ring: “We're getting married”. Nadia easily recalls that summer. The day before, she was preparing a raspberry cake, and the thought came to her: “How nice it would be to marry him. Andrii exudes such comfort and calmness. He is my man.”

In 2017, Andrii got a job in France at a research institute. While he worked, his wife wrote a book, and in the evenings they danced. Nadia, who considered herself child-free, was overwhelmed with the feeling that she wanted to have a child with this man.

He was present when she was giving birth in Marseille. Andrii was shouting louder than the obstetrician: “Come on, come on!” He didn't sleep for two days because he was so excited to have a son. He ran around, did push-ups, and then stayed by tiny Mark's side so that his mother could rest.

On February 24, 2022, the couple celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary. During this time, the couple had quarreled at most five times. Nadia doesn't remember her husband being unhappy or upset with her about anything.

“He was confident, light, honest, could not lie, and did not understand flattery and hypocrisy. He was absolutely beyond it. An open book,” the woman recalls.

On February 24, Nadia did not doubt that Andrii would return to Ukraine. After all, they had agreed to go to war together if the invasion happened, but five-month-old Mark was not yet born.

“The war brought us together, and the war also separated us,” Nadia admits that at first she was offended that her husband abandoned her in a foreign country, in a rented apartment with a small child. But later she worked through this trauma. “It's not the way out to break a person. In the end, I fell in love with him because he was a warrior. A strong, motivated person who was not afraid to die so that we could live today. So that our child and all children in Ukraine could live.”

While her husband was fighting in Kharkiv Oblast, she was looking for a car for his platoon, raising money, and finally sent a photo of a Nissan X-TRAIL: “Look at this car. Should I buy it?”

But her beloved Andrii did not see it.

Andrii Lytovchenko, call sign “Blade”, was killed on the night of July 12 near the village of Dementiivka when one battalion was replacing another on rotation. The reconnaissance group, in which Andrii was a member, ran into a Russian ambush. The scouts were offered to surrender. They refused. Four of them, including “Blade”, were shot dead at once, and two wounded managed to escape.

Nadiia was then informed that her husband was probably in captivity. Later, she found out that since the night of Andrii's death, the frontline had been broken through, and heavy fighting had been going on for a week. On July 21, she was told about her husband's death.

The body was taken to the morgue, and Andrii's mother hurried to bury her son without DNA testing.

“The body was visually unrecognizable: shot in the head, mined, lying in the rain and sun in a field. This mess mixed with worms was brought in a sack. 100 people did not come out of that battle, and 26 of them were killed. The rest were either captured or disappeared. They gave us the body in a coffin. They also gave us alleged Andrii's armor without chevrons and his KOYOT boots. Although according to the procedure, the clothes should have been burned. And wouldn't the Rashists have looted the 290-euro-worth shoes? They have stolen cheaper things as well.”

Nadia doesn't know what to think: her husband was buried in a cemetery near Kyiv or was he? For now, she has put aside all versions for later. When her psyche stabilizes and she has the strength, she will return to Ukraine and insist on exhumation. If necessary, she will go to court.

A psychologist and a community for widows became the best therapy for her.

“Right now, the only remedy for me is communicating with girls. I have about 20 close contacts. I feel them like they are my second self. We can say things here that we wouldn't share with our real-life friends or family. We are all at different stages: someone buried a loved one yesterday and someone 10 months ago. But there is definitely a girl who has gone through this state and coped with it," Nadiia shares.

In memory of her husband, Nadia gives interviews about him and is going to organize several photo exhibitions in different cities in France. She is going to collect stories about 10-15 Ukrainian families whose husbands were killed. She is also looking for grants to publish a book. Chapters about their loved ones are written by girls from the community. They also offer widows to participate in a video project.

“Girls sometimes ask why, why did our men die? I say: no one promised us that this would not happen to our men. People die in war,” Nadia recalls the painful frank conversations.

She also bought a Nissan X-TRAIL, and will soon drive it to Ukraine and give it to Andrii's commander.

The man fired his machine gun to the end and shouted: “Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!”

“I saw him so lonely, with the eyes of a dog. At the same time, he was so calm, reserved, with inner strength inside, and I wanted to support him humanly!” Olena Herhel, 43, recalls how a Belarusian man, Vasyl Parfenkov, came to the Kyiv volunteer hub on Christmas Eve in early 2015.

The activist fought against Lukashenko's regime for about 20 years. He came to Kyiv when he was released from prison for protesting. He decided to fight for a free Ukraine because for him it was the only way to liberate Belarus.

Olena and Vasyl, who was three years younger, became friends that night and began to call each other from time to time. Sometimes they met: she volunteered as a tactical medic, and he fought in the ranks of the OUN in the east.

It was not about love — they just “couldn't stop talking”. When in September 2015 Vasyl was wounded in Pisky, the woman felt a sharp pain.

“I felt that this person was dear to me,” Olena admits. “And when he recovered and went to Chonhar as a volunteer, I couldn't stand it and texted him: "I wish you success. I will be waiting for you." It wasn't to his face: "I love you," but it was implied," she says, embarrassed.

Olena happily recounts special moments: their first meeting as a couple, a text message from Vasyl on Valentine's Day with a proposal, and meeting with her mother, who warned her: “Daughter, introduce him to me if it's really serious.”

It was serious: Olena and Vasyl had a son, Milan, and a daughter, Solomiia. They also raised her firstborn son, Liubomyr, from her previous marriage. The five of them lived happily in Kyiv: in the summer, they would take their tents to the Dnipro or Desna, and in the winter, they would wait for the snow. Olena paints pictures with colors: Vasyl running with a sled to take the kids sledding, returning home when their clothes are wet; Vasyl wrapping presents from St. Nicholas in the middle of the night, everything thought out, interesting, with quests; Vasyl humming the Belarusian lullaby “Cars Sleep in the Garage”, and the youngest Solia falls asleep to it better than to her mother's “Kotok”.

February 24. Both Olena and Vasyl knew that this day would come, so they prepared: from stocking up on food for the cat to arranging where they would meet in case of a connection failure. They also knew that the man would go to war, and the woman would stay behind. They acted as they had agreed: he would protect all the children of Ukraine there, and she would protect theirs here.

Vasyl “Siabro” first fought for Kyiv Oblast, then in Mykolaiv Oblast, and then, together with Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, he covered the Ukrainian military retreating from Sievierodonetsk.

“The last time we talked was on June 24, and the next day we lost contact. I wasn't worried yet, because he was supposed to be at the base. On the 26th, I spent the whole day cleaning his office: arranging photos, books, and awards. I was already worried. And on the 27th, I received a call from the regiment: they didn’t know what had happened, Vasyl had gone on a reconnaissance mission with the guys, and the group disappeared,” the woman recalls.

Later, Olena pieced together testimonies and pieces from enemy propaganda videos about “killed Banderites” and roughly imagined what had happened.

A small group of scouts had to check their sector and cover the guys coming out of Lysychansk. Due to poor visibility, the drone was not launched, and the scouts came across a cluster of Russian tanks. The Ukrainians hit one of them, and a battle ensued. Vasyl was wounded, some of his men put a tourniquet on his leg, and he put another one on his arm himself.

Until the end, he fired his machine gun and shouted: “Glory to Ukraine! Long live Belarus!” His last words on the radio were: “An enemy tank is coming towards us, we are working on it.” Then the connection was cut off.

Olena saw her dead husband in a Belarusian video and recognized the chevron and belt she had given him. The body was deliberately laid out with his arms raised as if he was going to surrender.

“The enemies want to humiliate Ukrainians even after death. And then they leave nasty comments: "Another one died". And they give links to relatives' social networks: "You can leave your condolences here,"” Olena's words are full of disdain.

It is currently unknown where Vasyl Parfenkov's body is. Whether it was taken away by the Russians, who were offered to return it for any money, or whether it remained on the battlefield, buried in the ground. Until the front line changes, it is impossible to get there: the area is mined and under heavy shelling. Officially, the man is considered missing.

“I talked to my medical friends, and they confirmed for sure that with such critical bleeding, he had no chance. But there are days when my imagination draws pictures that it's a play,” Olena exhales loudly, “I'll calm down when the DNA test is carried out. Otherwise, there is always 0.5% of hope. I want to carry Vasyl's memory, to tell about him wherever I can. I want the world to know that there was such an extraordinary man who fought for Ukraine. I also want to see Russia fall apart.”

A community of widows is helping Olena come to terms with her loss. She plans to conduct training in tactical medicine. She supports women who have given birth to children after their husbands' deaths.

“We have three pregnant women and four newborns already,” Olena can be heard smiling even through the phone.

Author: Nataliia Mazina