In the years since her husband was captured by the Russians, Olha Kurtmallaieva has done whatever she could to speed his return. She has organized rallies to support prisoners of war, pleaded with government officials and read books to understand the psychological trauma that her husband is likely to experience.
Even though she is in remission from a rare cancer, she worries that time may be running out — for her, perhaps, and possibly for Ukraine.
Ms. Kurtmallaieva, 25, and the rest of Ukraine will pass a milestone Monday that few thought the country would reach: the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. In the beginning, Russia’s leaders and even some American officials assumed that Russian troops would capture the capital, Kyiv, in a matter of days.
That didn’t happen. And now, Ukrainians like Ms. Kurtmallaieva, battered and exhausted yet holding on, face this anniversary knowing that the United States, once Ukraine’s fiercest ally, might be pivoting toward Russia.
In some ways, Ms. Kurtmallaieva’s story is the story of this war: an invader, a fight, a loss, a stalemate, a life in limbo. She needs more chemotherapy, her doctors say, to reinforce her remission. Her husband, now 31, is still in captivity.
“I can sit down now, start crying and say that this has been very hard and very painful,” Ms. Kurtmallaieva said in a recent interview. “But I understand that I did not have another choice and still don’t have one. I just have to keep going and live the life that I have, whether it is good or bad.”
There are many ways to measure the cost of three years of war. You can do so in numbers: estimates of more than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed and 150,000 Russians, many dying in the brutal fighting over mere feet of ground along the 600-mile front line; almost 13,000 confirmed civilian casualties, although the true number is likely to be much higher; more than 61,000 missing Ukrainians, dead or hidden away in Russian prisons like Ms. Kurtmallaieva’s husband, a marine who was one of more than 1,000 captured at a metal plant in Mariupol in April 2022.
New shorthand has developed: “double widows,” for those who have lost not just one husband to the war but two. “Triple amputees,” to describe those who have lost three limbs to a mortar or a drone.
You can also measure this war in what people were forced to leave behind: a rose garden, abandoned in the eastern city of Melitopol; a stuffed animal forgotten on the outskirts of Mariupol by a 9-year-old told to pack her things to a soundtrack of explosions; the blue velvet balls hung on the tree every New Year’s holiday, stored in a box in Berdiansk, a southern city on the Sea of Azov, near Mariupol. All gone.
Despite being haunted by the past, about everything she has lost, Ms. Kurtmallaieva is trying to look forward. When doctors said she entered remission last May, she got herself a present: a Maltipoo puppy. She named it Lucky, she said, on the off chance it might bring her some.
Ms. Kurtmallaieva fled Berdiansk, her hometown, six months after Russian forces took it over. She now lives in a small studio apartment in Kyiv that is barely big enough for a queen-size bed, a chair and Lucky. One brick wall, painted white, is decorated with almost three dozen photos of her and her husband, Ruslan Kurtmallaiev, mostly embracing or kissing, including their first picture together and another of them at the city zoo just after her cancer diagnosis. Several show their wedding day.
In the corner, Ms. Kurtmallaieva keeps a souvenir featuring the highlights of Berdiansk: the sea, the port, the Ferris wheel, the lighthouse.
She met her husband at an Easter church service, and they married in 2017, just after she turned 18. He was already in the marines and said he would stay there until the then-simmering conflict with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine came to an end; he didn’t want his future children to fight.
In the fall of 2021, when she was 21, Ms. Kurtmallaieva received a diagnosis of Stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma after she felt a hard lump on her neck. She had one chemotherapy treatment in the nearby city of Mariupol, but then she had a small stroke.
Her husband surprised her at their apartment in Berdiansk on the afternoon of Feb. 22, 2022. He told her he had a feeling that something was going to happen, but he did not say what. She thought he looked exhausted. After two hours, he went back to his unit in the 36th Separate Marine Brigade.
That was the last time Ms. Kurtmallaieva saw her husband and his smile, which she says melts her. Two days later, the Russians invaded.
Her husband, fighting in the besieged city of Mariupol, called once or twice a week, but the calls lasted only a minute or two. Sometimes he sent text messages, even if they were just a single period to show he was alive.
On March 27, he sent a photo of himself in the back of a vehicle. “All right, sweetheart, stay strong there,” he wrote. “I love you.”
“And you, my dear, you are the best of the best,” she replied. “Stay strong, my love.”
That day, Russian tanks entered Berdiansk. Then she heard nothing. About two weeks later, the steel plant in Mariupol where Mr. Kurtmallaiev was fighting was overrun and he was captured, although Ms. Kurtmallaieva did not know it at the time.
A month later, Ms. Kurtmallaieva received a letter from a Russian detention center. Her hands were shaking so much, she ripped the bottom of the letter. It was brief: “My love, your husband is writing to you. I am fine, I am alive and well. I hope you are doing well, too. I love you, my dear. I hope we see each other soon. Yours, Ruslan.”
She was trapped in Berdiansk for six months. No chemo, no doctors, no more news about Ruslan.
By the time she made it to Kyiv, her health was the last thing on her mind. She was almost frantic, helping organize protests for prisoners of war, scanning Telegram channels featuring videos of prisoners first thing every morning. Feeling run-down and sick, she finally went to the doctor. Her cancer had progressed to Stage 4.
She needed chemo, again. This time, she brought a new friend, Inna Turova, 29, whose husband and sister-in-law had been prisoners of war for several months. Ms. Turova also lost her brother after a plane carrying 65 prisoners of war heading for a swap was somehow shot down.
“I don’t know how it feels for her, but I know that she’s the strongest person I know, who is fighting for her love,” said Ms. Turova, who held Ms. Kurtmallaieva’s hand during chemotherapy. “She’s waiting for her chosen one to come back. And we’re looking forward to him coming back and being the one who will hold her hand.”
Ms. Kurtmallaieva said nothing was certain about her prognosis, just as nothing was certain about her husband’s future. She keeps a book — “Once a Warrior, Always a Warrior: Navigating the Transition from Combat to Home” — next to her bed. She knows that her husband will not have an easy time if or when he is released. She knows that he will need time alone and that, like other former prisoners of war, he might not even understand that he is free, that he has the right to make his own choices.
But she also knows just what she will do: She will bring him home, even if that home is a studio apartment in Kyiv, and she will hold him.
Oleksandra Mykolyshyn and Dzvinka Pinchuk contributed reporting.
