Ukraine saw a nearly nine-fold increase in marriages compared to last year following the Russian invasion that started on Feb. 24.
Around 9,120 marriages got registered in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in the past five months, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
In comparison, 1,110 marriages got registered during the same period last year.
Among the newlyweds were members of Ukraine’s National Guard and Territorial Defense Forces.
The decision to marry now is “the bravest and hardest step you can take” because of the uncertainty of war, according to a young groom identified only as Vitaliy.
“I could leave for the front at any time,” he said.
The marriages also symbolized Ukrainian strength, according to Dariya Steniukova, a bride in Vinnytsia whose apartment got bombed on July 16.
A missile struck the besieged city a day before Steniukova’s wedding, killing 26 people. Despite this, Steniuvka and her fiancé were determined to do the ceremony.
“My house was ruined but not our lives,” the 31-year-old yoga instructor explained.
“It was a defiant message to the whole world – stressing how strong Ukrainians are. We are ready to get married even with rockets flying over our heads,” she added.
A similar spike in weddings was observed in the U.S. during World War II.
The country saw 1.8 million weddings in 1942 – an 83% increase from a decade earlier, according to The New York Times.
Two-thirds of the brides in those weddings married men who enlisted in the military.
Around 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in Russia’s invasion as of last month, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, revealed in an interview.
Ukraine was losing about 100 soldiers in fighting each day at the time, while hundreds more got wounded, Arestovych noted.
Russia last provided official figures of its losses back on March 25, when the country’s Ministry of Defense revealed that 1,351 got killed in the war.
Independent Russian media outlet Mediazona was able to confirm that 5,185 Russian soldiers have died in the ongoing conflict as of Friday.
Ukraine has seen a wartime surge in weddings as couples rush to tie the knot in the face of Russia’s invasion
Photo: AFP / Sergei SUPINSKY
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