Two years ago on Valentine’s Day, Olha Chesnokova told Yevhen Volosyan she loved him. They had met a month earlier on Tinder, bonding over music. Ms. Chesnokova, a 46-year-old psychotherapist, said she had wanted “to wait for the right moment to tell him” — but not too long. Mr. Volosyan had decided to join the army, and soon they would be separated.
Two months later, Mr. Volosyan, 37, left for the front. He served as a radio operator, sapper and eventually drone pilot, remotely flying suicide quadcopters into Russian forces.
The couple married a few months into Mr. Volosyan’s service, with him briefly returning to Kyiv to say, “I do.” Back at the front, he would stay in touch with his new wife through text messages during the day and video calls at night, when darkness grounded the drones.
On Nov. 24, 2023, Ms. Chesnokova texted him around midday.
Ms. Chesnokova, reassured, went on with her day, waiting for sunset to reconnect with Mr. Volosyan. She checked in again around 5 p.m., but he didn’t answer.
Her husband had bought her a ticket to a concert that night of Serhii Zhadan, their favorite Ukrainian artist, and they had agreed that she would call him from the show, so he too could listen. But he didn’t show up online.
Growing worried, Ms. Chesnokova texted him again.
Ms. Chesnokova returned home and waited anxiously. Just before midnight, Mr. Volosyan’s commander called to tell her he had died in shelling. Stunned and in tears, she spent the night trying to grasp the loss. Then the next morning she sent him a final message — knowing it would never be read.
Love for a flying ace
Melaniya Podolyak, 29, and Andrii Pilshchykov, 30, didn’t even have time to marry.
They met in the spring of 2023 when Ms. Podolyak, a media project manager, interviewed Mr. Pilshchykov, a fighter pilot. Better known by his call sign, Juice, Mr. Pilshchykov was a prominent face of the Ukrainian Air Force. He had helped defend Kyiv at the beginning of the war and visited the United States to lobby for the supply of F-16 jets to Ukraine.
Like many Ukrainian women, Ms. Podolyak was initially hesitant about dating a service member, worried that his combat duties would leave them little time together. But Mr. Pilshchykov’s kindness and thoughtfulness won her over.
For six months, she traveled every weekend to see him where he was stationed. During the week, they talked for hours at night, when he wasn’t flying. “I was sleep-deprived the entire time,” she said with a laugh.
On Aug. 24, 2023, they were driving to Mr. Pilshchykov’s base, two hours west of Kyiv. They talked about his possibly moving to the United States for a program to train pilots on F-16s. They also discussed marriage — that would make it easier for Ms. Podolyak to visit him there.
The next day, Mr. Pilshchykov left for a training mission.
Mr. Pilshchykov was supposed to return in a couple of hours. When he did not, Ms. Podolyak messaged him.
Then came a call from an air force acquaintance, informing her that Mr. Pilshchykov’s plane had collided midair with another jet.
She wouldn’t believe it, and sent him desperate messages.
Dreams of France
Like Ms. Podolyak, Valeriia Parfeniuk tried to visit her boyfriend, Danyil Kunchenko, as often as possible. But opportunities were scarce — he was a machine-gunner on the eastern front.
Their relationship began on a chat website where they met randomly and then talked for three hours straight. It blossomed from there.
They would call each other whenever they could — video calls only, never audio — and dream about the future. He wanted to move with her after the war to France, where part of her family lived, and become a military instructor there.
Last month, Ms. Parfeniuk, a 28-year-old visa manager, had a rare opportunity to visit Mr. Kunchenko, 22, in Izium, a war-ravaged eastern city where troops often rest between combat missions. She took a 12-hour overnight train from Kyiv and arrived on Jan. 8.
True to form, the couple spent over an hour on video calls that day and then texted about how eager they were to meet the next day.
But Mr. Kunchenko didn’t show up in Izium the next day.
Ms. Parfeniuk checked when he had last been active online: 3:39 a.m. As the day wore on, her concern deepened, and she came up with reasons for his absence. Maybe he had been assigned a new task? Maybe he was injured? She called and texted him.
It was only on the following day that Mr. Kunchenko’s comrades gave her the news: He had died during a combat mission, just hours before he was set to meet her.
“I just stood there, unable to comprehend it,” Ms. Parfeniuk said. “And I still can’t. I keep waiting for him to come online.”
A sniper’s bullet
Darya Ulman’s wait for word about her husband, Kirillo, was agonizing.
They had met in late 2022 in Dnipro, a large city in eastern Ukraine. With war leaving little time to waste, they became a couple within three days and married within six months. “Something just clicked,” Ms. Ulman said. “It all happened so fast.”
Mr. Ulman, 36, served in some of the worst hot spots of the eastern front. In early 2023, he was in Bakhmut, a city whose smoldering ruins became a symbol of the war’s brutality. Later, he moved to Avdiivka, captured by the Russians last year after a prolonged siege.
The specter of death loomed over the couple. Mr. Ulman had lost many friends in Bakhmut. At times, Ms. Ulman would find him filling out forms before a combat mission, detailing whom to notify if he didn’t return and how he wished to be buried.
On Valentine’s Day last year, he sent her a terse message to say he was leaving for a new mission.
Mr. Ulman didn’t respond. The next day, his wife texted him again, telling him that she had kissed her wedding ring several times during the night and that she hoped he had somehow felt it.
Two days passed. She kept texting him, clinging to the hope that he would answer.
On the morning of Feb. 17, Ms. Ulman learned from her husband’s deputy commander that he had been killed by a sniper. For nearly two months, his body lay in a buffer zone, unreachable by Ukrainian forces because of fighting. Eventually, Russian troops retrieved the remains and returned them a month later. A sniper’s bullet had torn through his face.
Mr. Ulman’s messages on Valentine’s Day were the last he ever sent her. She still tops up his phone account, to make sure no one else ever takes his number.
“It’s all I have left,” she said.