Your men have fallen
Why Ukrainian war widows go to the front
05/12/2023 3:37 p.m
When her husband loses his life fighting the Russian invaders, Svitlana Powar takes up arms. She is not the only widow to report for military service. However, out of revenge, she does not join the Ukrainian armed forces.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Svitlana Povar and her husband Semen came to an agreement: she stayed at home for the sake of her son, he went to the front so that one day their child could live in peace. But then Semen Powar was killed, Switlana found out about it on her 42nd birthday in September. Since then she no longer feels bound by the pact, she has volunteered for military service.
“I begged at the doors of military offices for five months,” says Powar. Eventually the army took the widow in. Since then, it has been deployed near Bakhmut in the east – where the fighting is fiercest. “Sometimes I feel like someone is watching over me. I tell myself that he exists, that he is helping me.”
As Powar speaks, she gazes out the window of her Soviet-era Kiev apartment. She is currently on leave from the front. She presses her hands together as she talks, then tears come to her eyes.
The desire to fight the Russian invasion was not born out of revenge, but out of a need to finish what her husband started, says Powar. “My husband always said that we must pass on our faith in God, the love for our country and the gift of mercy – and not the war. We must end it, not our children.”
5000 Ukrainian women serve at the front
Powar failed to tell her son that she would fight right where his father died as a sniper. But her son, who is studying in Poland, finally found out for himself. Since then he has been trying to discuss with her what to do if she too is killed by the Russian army. But Powar doesn’t want to talk about it. “If he starts doing this, I’ll cut these conversations off and tell him everything will be fine.”
According to official figures, 42,000 women serve in the Ukrainian army, 5,000 of them at the front. There are no figures on how many of them are soldiers’ widows. However, Switlana Powar is certainly not the only one.
Yevgenia Kolesnichenko from the devastated city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region decided at her husband’s funeral to go to the front – as a medic. Kolesnichenko was already safe in Poland with her 13-year-old daughter and 10-year-old twin boys when the call came in November that her husband had died in Bakhmut.
“I do my best to save other heroes”
“When he died, it became clear to me that someone had to stand up for his cause,” says the 34-year-old from Karlivka in eastern Ukraine. Before the war she had her own shop designing embroidery patterns.
After the Russian attack, Kolesnichenko wanted to work as a military medic, but her husband had opposed it. Could she have saved him? “I know he couldn’t survive with his injuries. But now I’m doing my best to save other heroes,” she says. The thunder of shells from the front can be heard in the distance, bees are buzzing nearby. “I work so that as many husbands and sons as possible return home.”
Two of Kolesnichenko’s colleagues also lost their husbands in the war. She also knows women who fight at the front like Switlana Powar. The future of the country is at stake, says Kolesnichenko. “That’s why I’m here.” She is aware that her children could soon be orphans. Kolesnichenko has already arranged who would then take care of the three.