Eduard Kukharchuk, 40, and his Ukrainian wife, Iryna Kukharchuk, 37, on their way to pick up their two sons from school in Kyiv. Photo / Laura Boushnak, The New York Times
Relationships between Ukrainians and Russians have long been common. Russia’s invasion has brought stigma, separation, legal troubles and a reconsideration of identity.
They met at work, or online, or on summer trips as teens. They are couples like so many others except for the war that has upended their lives and the role their different passports play in it.
Since Russian troops flooded into Ukraine in February 2022, fighting has pulled families apart. And for Ukrainians married to Russians, it has presented wrenching problems of residency, separation and social stigma.
Ukrainian-Russian couples have long been common, a reflection of the deeply intertwined history the two countries share. Many Ukrainians have relatives in Russia, and vice versa, and travel between the two countries was common before the war.
Polina and Kyrylo Chernenko are one such mixed couple. They met working in the sales department of a medical equipment company in Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine.
“I remember not only the date we met but also the fact that she wore a blue dress,” said Kyrylo, 34, born in Ukraine.
“But we were friends at the beginning,” said Polina, 39, raised in Russia. “We started dating three years later, in 2013.”
“It was November 23. I fell in love right away,” said Kyrylo. “She thought we were friends.”
They were married in 2015, and had a son. Polina, who was born in Ukraine but had a Russian passport because she spent her childhood in Russia, began the lengthy process of changing her citizenship. She said she had always considered herself Ukrainian, and Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 had pushed her to make that official.
She was waiting for her last document to come through when Russia invaded. Diplomatic ties, and the mail, were cut off. Polina – less than 20 miles from the border, in Kharkiv – was left in limbo.
“The scariest thing was that Polina’s residence permit was expiring in July, and in June, I was mobilised,” her husband said. “My sister was shocked, ‘You are going to the war; your wife is going to be deported; what will happen with the child?’”
Ultimately, Kyrylo remained in the reserves because of a medical condition – he has diabetes. And Polina finally received her Ukrainian passport this month.
“There were so many times I wanted to give up. This process really drains you, but I’m very happy I saw it through,” she said. “Now, at last, we are all Ukrainian citizens in the family.”
Like her, Eduard Kukharchuk, a 40-year-old electrician, was born in Ukraine but came to hold a Russian passport, having moved there with his mother when he was 6.
He met Iryna when they were teenagers, 13 and 16, on her visits to see family in Russia. “Every summer that I was visiting, we were sort of dating,” said Iryna, now 37. “When I entered university we broke up for about five years. But he continued to love me.”
They wound up together after all. Iryna’s father, who was born in Russia but had spent more than four decades in Ukraine and served in its armed forces, set the terms.
“There was one binding condition,” Eduard said. “If I want to be with her, I have to move to Ukraine. And that’s what I did.”
Eduard was preparing to surrender his Russian citizenship – an action that can only take place in Russia or at an embassy or consulate – when the war began. His persistent efforts to do so ever since have gone nowhere.
That has left him frustrated, stressed and sad. “When I lived in Russia, everyone labelled me as Ukrainian. When I live in Ukraine, I am labelled as Russian,” he said. “I was a stranger there and I am a stranger here. I’m a stranger everywhere.”
But he said he was determined to stay in Ukraine, gain citizenship, and serve in the military if called. “It’s not about my wish,” he said. “I will be obligated to join.”
Roman Romanenko, 33, already got the call from the military and answered it, but that took him even farther from his 34-year-old wife, Liliya, who lives in St Petersburg. The couple met online and were married on January 20, 2022 – he had planned to join her in Russia a few months later.
The February invasion upended those plans, Roman said. “It was a disaster.”
As Liliya scrambled to try to find a way into Ukraine, Roman was sent to train in mine removal. His unit was then deployed toward the front lines where, he said, “I demined only one mine, with my leg”.
“I’m lucky to be alive, and on the other hand it’s unlucky I stepped on the mine,” Roman said. “I try not to lose my spirit.”
His injuries have made the distance even harder to bear. “Everything is difficult,” Liliya said. “You realise that you cannot be there physically and cannot support this person.”
Now that Roman has been discharged from the military, they are one step closer to seeing each other again – though not in Ukraine, which is still off limits for Liliya. They plan to meet in Montenegro for a long-awaited reunion, and to plan their future. Both know they want to be together. The issue remains where, and how.
Lina and Mykolai Manyliuk also fell in love while hundreds of miles apart: she was in Siberia and he was in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Their relationship began while playing Grand Theft Auto online and grew through conversations over Skype – which led to meeting and, eventually, a ring sent by courier to Russia.
Lina, 21, then travelled to Kyiv, arriving on February 24, 2021, a year before the full-scale invasion.
“Right after our anniversary, the war broke out,” said Mykolai, 23.
“It was 5am when everything started,” Lina said. “You could hear the explosions already. I remember I sent a message to my mom, saying, ‘Mom, the war has started here.’ I called her later. It was a shock. I told her it was a war and I started crying.”
Her mother was supportive but her father, Mykolai said, “watches Russian news and believes Lina is lying to him about what’s going on. Even though she lives here, she sees all of it”.
“I think my father would say that we were bombing ourselves. Or that the targets were accurate and legitimate,” Lina added.
In the early days of the invasion, the couple went to stay with Mykolai’s parents outside Kyiv. “We made camouflage nets,” Lina said, fearing that Russian troops might sweep into the village.
For months, she felt torn – a sense of guilt made her want to leave Ukraine but also sure she could not go home since it was Russia that had attacked. “I had panic attacks,” she said, adding that she now knows Ukraine is where she wants to be.
Yulia Ivchenko, 29, underwent a similar evolution. She grew up in the Moscow region and met her husband, Bohdan, 28, on childhood visits to her grandmother’s village in Ukraine. They started dating long-distance in 2017.
Her red Russian passport first posed a problem during the pandemic, when Yulia was trying to reach Bohdan but was blocked on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine.
One guard didn’t want to let her in, she said. It took another guard stepping in to say “Be kind, let her through” before she was able to cross and meet Bohdan on the other side.
Like other couples, they struggled to wade through paperwork to ensure Yulia could stay in Ukraine – proving family ties, translating documents, waiting in lines. Those efforts were still underway on February 24, 2022, when the couple heard artillery and saw Russian helicopters from their home in Kyiv.
“Back then we didn’t differentiate between incoming and outgoing explosions,” Bohdan said.
Now they do, and their priority, he said, is “to survive, to begin with” – for themselves and their baby on the way.
But they hope that one day Yulia can attain Ukrainian citizenship, giving her a passport that is not only blue, but in line with how she feels.
Before the war, “I would say I was from Russia, from Moscow,” Yulia said. “Now, after four years living here, I say I am from Kyiv.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Laura Boushnak, Alan Yuhas and Oleksandra Mykolyshyn
Photographs by: Laura Boushnak
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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