When Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday, life for everyone came to a standstill. However, one couple, Yaryna Arieva and her partner Sviatoslav Fursin decided to get married and trade the sounds of the church bells for the sounds of air raid sirens.
Arieva, who married her partner at Kyiv's St Michael's monastery, said that the sounds of the air raid sirens during ‘the happiest moment of their lives was ‘very, very scary.’
The couple had initially decided to get married on May 6 and celebrate at a restaurant with a "very, very cute terrace" overlooking the Dnieper river, Arieva said, speaking to CNN.
The Russian attack has spread across central and eastern Ukraine. On Vladimir Putin's orders, the army cornered the former Soviet republic from all sides and entered the country's cities with heavy ammunition, forcing thousands if not millions to flee the nation.
The couple met at a protest in 2019 and decided that they wanted to get married because they were unsure about what their futures held.
"The situation is hard. We are going to fight for our land," said Arieva. "We maybe can die, and we just wanted to be together before all of that."
After the wedding, Arieva and Fursin have decided to help defend the country by going to join the local Territorial Defense Center.
"We have to protect it. We have to protect the people we love and the land we live on," she said. "I hope for the best, but I do what I can to protect my land," she said.
Calling her partner her “closest friend on the Earth” she hoped to celebrate her marriage one day.
"Maybe they (Russia) will just get out from our country and we will have an ability to celebrate normally. I just hope that everything will go normal and we will have our land, we will have our country safe and happy without any Russians in it," said Arieva.
World leaders from across the world have condemned the actions of Putin, who has maintained that the move was necessary for the security of his country
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