It was love at first sight

Mariupol was doomed. Relentless Russian bombing had turned streets into ruins and courtyards into graveyards. But several meters underground in the south-eastern Ukrainian city, a romance was blooming. Valeria Subotina, 33, had been sheltering in the enormous Azovstal steelworks, the final stronghold in the city, as it was surrounded by Russian forces in spring 2022. She had taken cover in one of dozens of Soviet-era bomb shelters built to withstand nuclear war, deep beneath the industrial plant. “You go down a semi-collapsed staircase, move through passages and tunnels, and go further and further down. Finally, you reach this concrete cube, a room,” Valeria says.

In the bunker - alongside soldiers and civilians - Valeria was working with the army's Azov brigade as a press officer, communicating the horrors of Russia's months-long siege to global media. There, too, was her fiancé Andriy Subotin, a 34-year-old Ukrainian army officer, defending the plant. The pair had found each other through work - Mariupol's Border Guard Agency - around three years before the siege. When Andriy met Valeria, it was love at first sight. "He was special, it felt so warm to be around him," says Valeria. "He was always kind and never refused to help anyone." Andriy was an optimist, she says. He knew how to be happy and found joy in small things: sunny weather, smiles, friends' company.

"On the first day we met, I realized Andriy was very different to others." Within three months, they had moved in together, renting a small one-storey house in Mariupol with a garden. The couple started building a life together. “We traveled a lot, went to the mountains, met friends,” Valeria says. “We fished together and spent lots of time outdoors. We visited theatres, concerts and exhibitions. Life was full.” They decided to get married and dreamed of a big church wedding with family and friends. They picked wedding rings. Valeria quit her job and began to nurture her creative side, writing and publishing poems about the earlier years of fierce fighting with Russia in Mariupol. "For a couple of years before the full-scale invasion, I was truly happy," she recalls. Everything changed in February 2022.