A “forbidden” love between Ukrainians and Russians flourishes in Serbia

She is from Ukraine and he is from Russia. Their love blossomed online, but with their nations at war, the odds of continuing their relationship were stacked against them. Even so, it didn’t take long for the young couple to defy the odds.

Mariia Vyhivska and Iurii Kurochkin, now both 23, fell in love while sharing an online video game. But Russia’s invasion of their neighbor threatened to sink their relationship before it even took off. They boldly turned their backs on the war-bred enmity that permeated their home country and chose to be together.

Vyhivska lived in Zvyagel, near kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and in Kurochkin in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Despite the seemingly insurmountable distance, the couple did not give up.

“It wasn’t difficult,” Vyhivska said with a smile. “I wasn’t scared at all. I am happy. Because I am loved.”

Kurochkin recalled how the couple began planning an in-person meeting.

“It was a year ago…I started organizing my international passport, to visit Mariia in Ukraine,” Kurochkin recalls. “I finished it in January and as you know the war started in February and it ruined all our plans.”

It seemed that all hope of reunification had evaporated amid the Russian assault on Ukraine that drew global condemnation and saw Millions of Ukrainian refugees leave the country.

Vyhivska and Kurochkin were distraught. She moved to the Czech Republic shortly after the start of the war while he remained at home in Russia. But they didn’t give up. They began to evaluate “some options for living together,” Kurochkin said.

The answer turned out to be Serbia, a Balkan Slavic nation that remained friendly with Russia and where Russians could enter visa-free. The Serbian capital, Belgrade, was where Vyhivska and Kurochkin first met.

“I arrived in Serbia on April 27 and waited for her for several days,” he said. “He was from the Czech Republic and we met at the central bus station.”

He was everything she imagined, Vyhivska said.

“There was this moment of incredible joy,” he said. “I traveled 16 hours and I didn’t sleep, I couldn’t sleep. So I got off the bus and fell into his arms.”

Their new life together began at this moment. A hostel served as their first home before the couple found a small apartment in a Belgrade suburb. They worked various jobs while pursuing online studies at a university in St. Petersburg.

Life together has not been without problems. Last July, pro-Russian extremists in Serbia drew a huge Z, a symbol of the Russian invasion, on his building and assailants broke into his apartment. They were also attacked by a group of hooligansdijo Kurochkin.

It is estimated that 200,000 Russians and around 20,000 Ukrainians arrived in Serbia last year.. Many Russians have established businesses in the Balkan country, which has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia despite its application to join the European Union.

“Sometimes we talk about the war, but we have no problem with each other,” Kurochkin said. “With other people, of course (we have some), because there are a lot of people, there are a lot of points of view, so it’s impossible to manage them all.”

For Vyhivska, the biggest concern has been how she will be perceived by her fellow Ukrainians due to their relationship, although her own family has no objections.

“What happens next? We’ll see,” he said. “We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, there’s even a danger of nuclear war, now they’re scaring us with this. I can’t look very far.”

Kurochkin said they would take it as it comes: “We are happy because we are together.”

(with information from AP)

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