Ukraine War: I married the love of my life in a bunker in Mariupol. Two days later he was killed

Spring had brought the sun into Valeria and Andriy’s garden and the first flowers appeared.

“I started to enjoy the spring,” says Valeria. “We knew about Putin’s threats and we knew there would be a war, but I didn’t want to think about it.”

A few days before February 24, the day the full-scale invasion began, Andriy urged Valeria to leave the city. She refused.

“I knew that no matter what happened, I had to be in Mariupol and defend my city.”

Weeks later, they were both underground, in the Azovstal bunkers.

They only saw each other occasionally, but when they did, they were moments of “pure happiness.”

At that time, Mariupol was on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Infrastructure strikes had disrupted water and electricity supplies in parts of the city and there were food shortages. Civilian houses and buildings had also been destroyed.

On April 15, a large bomb was dropped on the power plant. Valeria narrowly escaped death.

“I was found among corpses, the only survivor. On the one hand a miracle, but on the other hand a terrible tragedy.”

Suffering from a severe concussion, she had to spend eight days in an underground hospital at the plant.

“The smell of blood and decay was everywhere,” she says.

“It was a very frightening place. Our wounded comrades with amputated limbs were lying everywhere. They could not be properly cared for because there were very few medical supplies.”

Andriy was very worried after Valeria’s injury and started planning the wedding while still in the bunker.

“It felt like he was in a hurry, like we didn’t have any time left,” says Valeria.

“He made a couple of wedding rings out of aluminum foil with his own hands and proposed to me. Of course I said yes.

“He was the love of my life. And our aluminum foil rings – they were perfect.”

On May 5, the couple was married by a commander stationed at the plant. The ceremony took place in the bunker and the two wore their uniforms as wedding attire.

Andriy promised his wife that when they returned they would have a real wedding, with real rings and a white dress.

Two days later, on May 7, he was killed by Russian artillery fire at the steel mill.

Valeria didn’t find out about it right away.

“People often say that you feel something inside when a loved one dies. But I was in a good mood, on the contrary. I was married and in love.”

The hardest thing for her was to keep a “lump of grief” inside her while she defended her city together with “her boys” – comrades – in Azov Valley.

“I was a bride, I was a wife and now I’m a widow. The scariest word,” she says.

“I couldn’t react the way I wanted to at that moment.

“My boys were always there. They sat next to me, they slept next to me, they brought me food and supported me,” she says. “I could only cry when they weren’t looking.”

At some point she felt that her grief lessened the fear of being in the war zone.

“I didn’t care… You just have to understand that in the next world, if there is one, there will be a lot more people waiting for you than here with you.”

The Ukrainian soldiers in Azovstal finally surrendered on May 20. Valeria was one of the 900 prisoners of war that the Russian military forcibly abducted from Mariupol.

“We stared through the windows of the bus at the buildings we loved, the streets we knew so well. They were destroying and killing everything I loved – my city, my friends and my husband.”

Valeria survived eleven months of Russian captivity and reported torture and mistreatment. Andriy often appeared to her in her dreams.

In April last year, she was released as part of a prisoner exchange and is now back in Ukraine.

It is difficult to say how many people were killed by the Russian shelling of Mariupol, but local authorities say the number is over 20,000.

According to the UN, 90 percent of residential buildings were damaged or destroyed, and bodies still lie in the rubble.

As far as Valeria knows, her husband’s body is still in the Azovstal steelworks in the now occupied city.

Sometimes, she says, she looks up at the sky and talks to it.