A young Ukrainian couple decided to get married three months before their planned wedding in May when Russia began invading Ukraine. Now, they’re fighting for their country’s freedom together. Yaryna Arieva, 21, and her husband Sviatoslav Fursin, 24, told Fox News they discussed getting married early if Putin invaded, but didn’t really believe it would […]
A young Ukrainian couple decided to get married three months before their planned wedding in May when Russia began invading Ukraine.
Now, they’re fighting for their country’s freedom together.
Yaryna Arieva, 21, and her husband Sviatoslav Fursin, 24, told Fox News they discussed getting married early if Putin invaded, but didn’t really believe it would happen.
When the attacks began, Arieva’s mother found a priest to marry the couple without an official certificate.
“The hardest two days of my life [were in] the beginning of the war,” she said.
Arieva and Fursin joined Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces immediately after their wedding. The couple is based in Kyiv, Putin’s main target.
When she spoke to Fox News from shelter, her husband was on a combat mission with the Territorial Defense Forces. The team is on the second lines, assisting the Armed Forces of Ukraine in efforts to push back against Russian military forces.
“He was completely, extremely exhausted after the last mission,” Arieva said. “[H]e just couldn’t find normal words to describe what he wants and what he thinks, and it was awful. He didn’t sleep for two days…but he has been [in shelter] for three days, and he had a chance to take a rest a little bit. So, it was better for him…when he was taken to the next mission.”
She said that Fursin is the second commander of his group of about 15 soldiers, despite not having “a lot of military experience” because his father and father-in-law were soldiers.
“He is very, physically, very strong, and he loves sports, and he has some knowledge about armor, so he was one of the best in the group,” she said.
“People here are absolutely sure that we will win,” she continued. “It’s just the question of time. And also we are laughing at Russians. We are making jokes, telling anecdotes - not only about Russians but about [the] situation.”
Once the war is over, rather than going on their honeymoon, Arieva wants to smoke cigarettes, finish renovating her apartment and “maybe, sometime, [have] children.”
