Kyiv: Hours after a Russian missile and drone attack badly damaged their Kyiv apartment, Liudmyla and Leonid Ryzhak went ahead with their long-delayed wedding, refusing to let the war take away a moment they had waited years to share.
Attack strikes just before their wedding
Liudmyla, 33, had prepared her wedding dress the night before, while her 43-year-old fiancé Leonid, a Ukrainian soldier, had returned from the front for a long-awaited break.
During the night, a Russian strike hit a warehouse across the street from their building. The blast shattered windows, scattered furniture and left their apartment uninhabitable. The couple escaped with Liudmyla’s six-year-old daughter and their pets and later returned to retrieve their wedding clothes from the rubble.
The attack was only the latest disruption to their plans. For six days, air-raid sirens had prevented them from completing the paperwork needed for their marriage.
Love refuses to wait for another day
Despite the destruction around them, the couple dressed for their ceremony and travelled to the registry office.
Their wedding clothes bore signs of the night’s destruction. Liudmyla’s dress had tiny tears from the rubble, while Leonid wore army trousers because his formal trousers remained buried in their damaged home.
Even at the registry office, another air-raid warning forced the ceremony to pause for almost three hours. When the alert ended, the couple returned inside and finally exchanged their vows.
Their decision reflected a simple determination to live despite the uncertainty created by war. “If God gave me a continuation of life, then why should I put it off?” Liudmyla said.
The couple, whose friendship eventually grew into love, became husband and wife amid the continuing conflict — turning a day marked by destruction into one of hope, courage and new beginnings.