The rule was unspoken but strictly followed. Ever since Tetyana's husband, Dmytro, joined the Army, they had to send each other a message every day. In the fall of 2024, the 39-year-old Ukrainian was fighting near the small town of Kurakhove in the east of the country, which was under heavy Russian attack. Then on November 5, 2024, he stopped replying. The day before, "We talked about ourselves, about the family, he hadn't mentioned any attacks or particular operations," Tetyana recalled on Sunday, May 25, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses to mask her tears, her shoulders draped in a Ukrainian flag.

Soldiers from his brigade informed her a few days later that Dmytro was missing following an enemy assault. His body was never found. Today, Kurakhove is an occupied town.

Since then, Tetyana has lived in this limbo – caught between a sense of loss and an inability to grieve as long as there's a glimmer of hope, as long as no body has been recovered. A civil servant at a pension fund, she waited for a sign of life, spending day and night combing through Russian propaganda videos showing captured Ukrainian soldiers, hoping to recognize her husband's face. She now only associates with women who share her fate in her hometown in the central Khmelnytsky region.

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