Mykola Ivanchenko, veteran of the Azov battalion, welcomed us to his house.Image: niels ackermann/lundi13
In Ukraine, tens of thousands of women have lost their husbands at the front. Mykola Ivanchenko belongs to an invisible minority: the widowers. Since the death of his partner in Azov Valley, this veteran has been learning how to be a full-time father.
March 1, 2026, 5:01 p.mMarch 1, 2026, 5:01 p.m
Alessia Barbezat and Niels Ackermann, Ukraine
Mykola Ivanchenko is waiting for us at the front door of his home in Brovary. A charmless prefabricated building from the Brezhnev era, like there are thousands of them around the capital. In his khaki-colored T-shirt with the “Azov” logo, the outside temperature of minus 15 degrees doesn’t seem to bother him. The capital experiences this the harshest winter since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russian armed forces are systematically bombing the country’s energy infrastructure and have left its residents in darkness and cold for several weeks.
In January, the mayor of Kiev, former boxer Vitaly Klitschko, announced the departure of 600,000 of the capital’s 3.6 million residents.
“The temperature is almost -20°C, and Putin is using this to break resistance, plunge everyone into depression and create tension in society.”
Vitali Klitschko told AFP
But Mykola Ivanchenko decided to stay. With his three daughters. With fur slippers on his feet, he invites us, the photographer and me. He hands me one of his daughters’ slippers. “The ground is frozen due to the power outages. You’ll get cold,” he says in a gentle voice and shows me his cell phone. A Telegram channel keeps him up to date on the status of the power grid. “We still have electricity for a few minutes, but after that it will be out for seven hours,” he sighs. “But it’s okay, we’re organizing ourselves.” This is proven by the many external batteries that are distributed throughout the apartment.
Mykola, with slippers on her feet. On the right is the mentioned Telegram channel.Image: Niels Ackermann/lundi13
Till death do us part
We take a walk around the apartment. A small kitchen on the left, a living room that turns into a bedroom at night: “My bachelor pad,” jokes the 43-year-old man. At the back, two bedrooms. He opens one a crack. “I’m not allowed in.” In the other, Oleksandra, 13 years old, is still sleeping. There is a Christmas tree in the hallway. It’s February. He shrugs his shoulders. “I asked the girls to put it away. They want to keep him for a little while longer. So I leave it there,” he says and invites us to take a seat in the living room.
On the top shelf there is a Halloween skeleton couple holding an inscription: “Till death do us part.” “We hoped to grow old together with Marina,” Mykola admits calmly.
Marina Aleksiuk, member of the Azov Regiment, died in 2022.Image: Niels Ackermann/lundi 13 / dr
Death separated them. Much sooner than Mykola had imagined. Marina Aleksiuk was killed in a Russian bombing raid on May 8, 2022. As a member of the Azov Regiment, the emblematic unit of the Ukrainian resistance, she defended the Azov Valley Works during the Siege of Mariupol. After evacuating the children, Mykola found himself in his home in the occupied city of Berdyansk in the southeast of the country, with a rifle and grenades at the ready.
Love at first sight at Azov
They met at Azov in 2018. He had already joined the regiment in 2014 when Russia attacked Donbass. She joined in 2015. It was love at first sight.
«I can’t say what fascinated me so much about her. I was just struck by lightning. It was very obvious.”
Marina has two daughters from a previous relationship, Olena and Oleksandra. Mykola has a daughter: Milena. In 2021 he left Azov and joined the Marine Corps. The family moves to Berdiansk on the Sea of Azov, not far from Mariupol. Marina signs with Azov for another five years.
The 30-year-old with sometimes brown and sometimes blonde hair has never held a weapon in her hand. She works in the background as a technician. Even if, according to Mykola, war is not a “thing for women,” he wants to teach her to defend herself “properly.” Weapon handling, shooting, tactical movements – the training continues.
“She was fully committed. She wanted to become a better version of herself.”
Mykola, his partner and their two children, Olena and her younger sister Oleksandra, on the shores of the Sea of Azov. Image: dr
During the first days of the Russian invasion, Marina’s unit is sent to Mariupol. Mykola begs her to return home. The forty-year-old’s answer is clear: “No, you know that my place is here.”
“I love you, take care of the children.”
On March 6, 2022, communication with Marina stops. “I love you. Take care of the children,” she writes to Mykola. «Those were her last words. I literally collapsed,” he remembers. With the energy of desperation, Mykola tries to reach them in Mariupol, but those who try to pass the checkpoints are systematically shot by the Russian forces. He manages to reach a safe place. There the redeeming message appears on his cell phone:
«Everything is good. I live.”
A short respite. Besieged, starved and bombed, the fighters holed up in the Azovstal factory, the last Ukrainian “nest of resistance” in the city. They will last for several weeks. But when the fall of the steelworks becomes inevitable, Marina makes one final request: that Mykola become the guardian of her two daughters. On May 8th, the fighter died in a bomb attack.
Mykola finds out the news on May 16th. “I reacted more cautiously than in March, when time stood still. This first trauma helped me cope with the very real news this time. Then I thought about how I should teach the girls.”
He admits he hesitated about lying to her before changing his mind:
“I definitely couldn’t entertain the idea that her mother might still be alive or a prisoner of war. This hope is a sweet poison that slowly destroys you.”
In just a few words he describes the crises, the tears, the world that is falling away from under the family’s feet. The next steps must be organized very quickly. Freed from his military obligations, he fights for custody of Marina’s two daughters Olena (16) and Oleskandra (13), while at the same time raising his own daughter Milena (11). «It was clear that they would stay with me. Whether biological daughters or not.” The patchwork family will settle in Kyiv in July 2023. And tries to regain his footing.
Facade of a «brezhnevka», a residential building made of prefabricated concrete slabs, typical of the Brezhnev era. Here in Brovary, where Mykola lives, not far from Kyiv.Image: www.lundi13.ch
From veteran to caring father
He’s a must-see, this hardened veteran transformed into a caring father. At the head of an all-female household, Mykola learns to find her way:
“I never force them to talk. If they need advice or miss their mother, they come to me. We then sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea. We talk and try to remember happy moments. When they cry, I try to comfort them.”
When he’s at a loss for words, he just stays there. A friend, Viktoria, takes care of the “girls’ things” and the shopping. “That’s better this way,” he smiles.
With three teenagers under one roof, everyday life is sometimes… busy. “They have their wishes, which don’t always match my wishes and our financial reality,” he says, amused. “If I don’t take out my wallet, I’ll become the evil ‘Uncle Kolya’.”
In Ukraine, calling a man “uncle” is a sign of affection and respect. In this reserved way, the girls show their connection to Mykola without saying the word “dad”. “Your father behaved badly,” he explains. «You refuse to use that term. I’m Uncle Kolya, and that’s a good thing.”
Flowers on the Maidan
Marina’s body was never found. This was almost a relief for Mykola:
“They should have been identified. I didn’t want the girls to keep that image in their heads.”
With his three teenagers, he sometimes visits the center of Kiev, Maidan Square, where thousands of small yellow and blue flags commemorate the men and women killed at the front. In the middle there is an area dedicated to the members of Azov. «We put flowers there. “I have the feeling that this is more important to me than to them,” says the father. «They will understand the meaning later. At the moment they are living in the present.”
In a country with tens of thousands of widows, Mykola is an exception. He has tried to attend support groups, but there are no men there. “It is very difficult to find a common language between grieving relatives. Everyone experiences grief in their own way.” The veteran continues as best he can:
“Even if my body is just an empty shell, I have to persevere. For the girls. As for me, we’ll see later.”
He is now devoting himself to reintegrating wounded war veterans into society. Caring for others. Always.
A cat pokes its head into the living room. Mykola’s big green eyes light up. «She is a little girl from Zaporizhia. Shortly after my partner died, she sneaked into our headquarters. She jumped on my shoulder and started purring right above my barely healed tattoo of Marina.” “Your lover has come to visit you,” a friend says to him. Mykola laughs: “I wanted to name the kitten Marina, but her sister was against it.” It will be called Rousya, after the Ukrainian word for mermaid (rusalka), because “Marina was my mermaid.”
The Mykola district during a power outage.Image: Niels Ackermann / Lundi13
The power goes out. Olena walks through the door of the apartment, illuminated by the light of her iPhone’s flashlight. A photo of the racing driver Charles Leclerc can be seen as the background image. “He’s so beautiful,” she blushes. Before she goes to her room, “Uncle Kolya” hands her an external battery. And closes the door quietly.