Svitlana Povar knew her husband would not approve when she joined the Ukrainian army and was stationed in the troubled Donetsk region, where fighting with Russian forces is fierce.
The couple – for almost 20 years – had a pact when the Kremlin launched its war of words in February 2022.
She lived away from the front with her teenage son. He will fight so that his child can one day live in peace.
But when Svitlana, 42, learned on her birthday last September that her husband had died in the war, she no longer felt bound by their agreement.
“I spent five months begging at the doors of military recruitment offices,” she said, her hands clasped tightly together, staring out the window of her recently renovated Soviet-era flat in Kiev.
She described to AFP a heated argument with her husband, Semen, who was 38, when he was killed around Vugledar, but believes he may have come around to his decision.