She caresses her belly without thinking and looks out of the window of her mother-in-law’s small three-bedroom house she now shares with her children. In a few weeks the mother of nine children will become a mother of 10 children. Her daughter will be born into a large family but without a father – her husband, Yuri, was killed near Kharkov on February 24, the first day of the Russian invasion, the day “everything was overthrown.” Russia warns of response to NATO build-up in Poland – keep up to date “My husband was a soldier,” she said. “In our free time we always went to the river for barbecues, everywhere with the children – to the zoo, everywhere. “We spent all our time as a family, you know, we lived well. There is nothing. There is no family now.” Her grief is immediate and uncontrollable. she bends between sentences and regularly glances at a photo of her husband in a military uniform, as if looking at him for comfort and support. “He was a good man, he was a good man, he was responsible. “He was a sports trainer in the brigade, they went to competitions. “He liked to sing and play the guitar. “And that’s all, life is over, we had plans for both of us and now I’m alone. “We are proud [of him]but it does not make it easier for us. “Who needs this war? How many children have died? Families are just being destroyed, just being destroyed.” She only recently discovered that her husband was dead. They did not hear anything from him for 77 days as the Russian invasion proceeded, resulting in more and more lives. “Of course we are proud, they protected other children and did not let the column pass in Kharkov, they just defended it themselves. He did not even manage to get us out of the city, he said: “I will take you out, then I will go to war”. “He said in our last conversation: ‘I’ll be back when the war is over.’ We’re still waiting …” Coincidentally, her eldest son is now fighting in the same front line as her husband. “He is only 20 years old, he still does not know anything, he is still a child,” he said. “I am very afraid of him, I am terribly afraid. “I tried to get him out of the army because of this situation, to help us at home but it is not possible. “The war. Impossible. “And now it does not have a mobile phone connection. But you have to live with it. I can not even call him to see how he is. “How can this be endured? It’s difficult. You just live and you think it will end soon.” The bedroom door is tightly closed, children play elsewhere. Grief is done privately. “Everyone is afraid to cry, so that others are not upset. That is why we do not cry. We cry alone but we do not all cry together. You can not cry. It is difficult, of course.” I asked her about the Russians, the soldiers who killed her husband. “These are not people. These are not people at all,” he said. “They came to our land to destroy our plans for the future, to destroy families. “I do not know why he is here and how many others have to die to end this war. “Three months without sleep. Not sleeping for three months is difficult. “You are worried about the children. “Where will we go next if they suddenly come here? How much longer will we run? Where will we go next?” Read more: The weapons on the southern front that has just moved for weeks ‘My child is gone… but he died as a hero and I’m proud of him for it’ The weapons used by the Ukrainians to fight the Russian forces – and the weapons ask It’s the scary dilemma that so many families here face. Yuri was buried nearby, resting in the village where he grew up, in a quiet corner of rural Ukraine. “You will find his grave, you will find out who he is,” Marina tells us as we say goodbye. Subscribe to Ukraine War Calendars on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Spreaker He is right. We find it in a small cemetery opposite the village church. It overflows with flowers and with a photo of him posing proudly in uniform is Senior Sargent Yurii Berlizov’s last resting place: soldier, husband, father. one of the first to be killed in this horrific war, one of the first of thousands.
