Just hours after their wedding on the first day of Russia’s invasion, Yaryna Arieva and Sviatoslav Fursin joined the fight to protect their country.
The couple were due to get married in May but rushed to tie the knot in Kyiv last week when Russia invaded, before joining the Ukrainian resistance.
Wearing camouflage jackets and holding a rifle, the couple told CNN’s Don Lemon about spending their honeymoon living in a city under siege and taking up arms to fight against Russian troops invading their homeland.
“It’s hard to understand, this new reality that we have,” said Arieva, who is from Kyiv.
She said it’s the first day of spring and usually people would be sowing sunflowers — Ukraine’s national flower — instead, they will be resisting Russia’s attack.
“No one here is saying that we will lose, or is crying. Everyone here believes we will win. It’s all just a question of time. So, I am very happy to see this great amount of people, really being ready to fight. Being ready to kill for their land. Having no doubt about our win in this war,” she said.
Her husband, Fursin, was born in the western city of Lviv and said his “people always want to be free. These people are ready to fight for their freedom.”
Going on combat missions, he is worried for the safety of his family — his wife, parents and sister — but said he “will do everything to protect them.”
Arieva said she is working every day and though it’s “hard waiting for my husband to come back from combat missions,” everyone is helping each other.
“Life here is different, but it is life. People joke and laugh. That is very interesting to see. It is another kind of life that has changed with the beginning of war but it is life,” she said.
The couple called on the international community to help Ukraine with money, food, weapons, and medical assistance and to place more sanctions on Russia.
Fursin said he hopes the time will come soon when he can gather his family and friends “all in one place and drink a good glass of wine. And say to everybody, ‘Hurray, war is ended, we won.'”
Before that time, though, he said he wants “everybody in this world, including Russia and the Russian people, to remember” that they are fighting “for the freedom of the world.”
