Ukrainian soldiers' lovers kept waiting as war drags on

Kateryna Halushka often sits alone, staring at her phone, waiting for a sign of life from her boyfriend, a Ukrainian soldier fighting at the front.

- 

Like thousands of others, the Russian invasion has turned her love life into an anxious wait for messages, calls and super-lived photos, holding little faith in US President Donald Trump's promise to end the war, they are stuck in what Halushka called a constant state of waiting. "I've got a new social role," the 28-year-old told AFP in a Kyiv park. "I am now someone who waits." Halushka giggled with the idea of stating it. She worked two jobs and volunteered as a paramedic — away from the front since she suffered a severe injury.

"That constant waiting state is quite stressful ... you wind yourself up thinking something bad happened. You just sit there, waiting for a call, waiting for a message," she said. She had already lost a boyfriend in the war, killed at the front. That pain would come back anytime her current partner did not answer for a day or two. "You live with the constant understanding that he may go to fight and not return. You constantly live with the feeling that they may die and you'll never see his body again," she said.