Families in war How Ukrainians fight to keep their wounded relationships alive

When her husband went off to help defend Ukraine against Russia's invasion in 2022, Yulia stayed at home with their toddler. She describes being overcome by a feeling of "numbness".

- Peter Beaumont

"I'd been left alone with a small child. The worst thing for her was the thought that her father had left her and would never come back. The worst time was when she blocked her father when he tried to call.

"It took several months to get a connection again. I'm glad my husband didn't give up."

Amid a multitude of strains on life in Ukraine after three long years of war, Yulia's family have managed to survive the pressures, helped by a group that offers war-damaged families supportive counselling.

Others have not been so lucky. While there are no official figures, anecdotal evidence points to a growing number of relationship stresses and families that have broken up under the pressures of war.

From absence when wives and children have fled abroad, to the enforced separation when service at the front means men might only get home for a short period of leave once a year, there are a variety of factors driving relationship stress.

Research from other countries, including by King's College London, suggests that in families where one member deploys for 12 months in a three-year period - considerably less than is usual in the Ukrainian military since the Russian invasion - relationship problems are 8% more prevalent than in families where soldiers deploy for shorter periods. How partners adapt and change to new circumstances, whether at home or on the frontline, can also test the closest of bonds.

"It's really a sensitive issue," says Natalia Umerenkova, a psychologist at Ukraine's Institute of Social and Political Psychology who is involved in running the counselling sessions that Yulia attended.

"One of the main things is fatigue. The war in Ukraine has been going on for more than 10 years, including more than three years of all-out war.