Left: Photo of Serhiy's wrist at Oksana Sova on September 16, 2022Right: Serhiy on the northern front line of Chernihiv state in March
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Oksana Sova flipped through the photos of Izium's mass cemetery and immediately recognized the bracelet her husband wore on the wrist of the corpse.
"I knew it was him," Sova, 37, told The Kiev Independent.
It was the blue-yellow bracelet he had been wearing as a lucky charm — a gift their children had given him before heading to the front in 2014.
Her husband, Serhiy, disappeared during operations in Kharkiv on April 19. That day, they talked for two minutes, and then he had to go back to the front line. Since then, Sova has been calling her husband's number day and night, to no avail.
All along, Sova had been holding out the hope of seeing her husband alive. But as time goes on, it's becoming harder and harder to shake off the looming reality.
On September 16, Sova sat in the artillery-infested Nikopol of the Dnipropetrovsk region, staring at her mobile phone for news from the liberated areas of Kharkiv region.
Ten days earlier, Ukraine had launched a sudden counteroffensive in the northeast, liberating the city of Izium on September 10. Soon, a massive cemetery containing 447 bodies was discovered in the newly liberated city.
Immediately, a photo of a badly decayed arm wearing a blue-and-yellow bracelet began circulating online.
"I was crying, screaming horribly, uncontrollably," Sova said.
Seeing their mother lose control for the first time, her 9- and 14-year-olds immediately understood what had happened. But despite this, Sova left some room for suspicion until she found another photo of her husband, this time capturing a tattoo still visible on his body.
"It's as if not just my husband's life is over, my life is over," Solva said, in tears. "I lost all meaning in my life."
New Year's memories
The recent New Year's Eve is Sowa's last happy memory of what she has left now.
Serhiy was serving in the northern part of Chernihiv at the time, but his commanders allowed him to quickly return home to visit his wife and two children.
Although Serhiy only stayed at home for two nights, the family did their best. They held a barbecue and made plans for the coming year.
"We just want to stay at home with the whole family, nothing else," Solva said with a laugh.
Less than two months later, on February 24, Russian forces began all-out war. The northern Chernihiv region, where Shery was stationed, immediately became the front line.
After the successful defeat of the Russians in Chernihiv Oblast, Sherey's regiment was moved to the northeastern part of Kharkiv Oblast, where fierce fighting was taking place.
In his last phone call, Serhiy spoke about Russia's mounting shelling.
"(My husband) didn't back down," Solva said. "He stayed and fulfilled his heroic duties until the end."
In 2016, the family of the widow Oksana Sova took a group photo at a celebration in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk Region.
Military-turned
Because her husband was a soldier during the war, Sova had to get used to the pain of living in uncertainty.
Serhiy, a canine scientist, first enlisted in the army in 2014 when he was in the village of Pisky near Donetsk Airport. His main task was to supply weapons to the Ukrainian defenders who occupied the airport.
Since then, he has spent most of his time on the battlefield, only occasionally returning home to be with his family.
Knowing the risks, Serhiy would sometimes sit down with his wife and try to prepare her for the worst.
"He knows where he's going. He knows what he's fighting for," Sova said.
Every time Shersi returned home, he had a strong urge to return to the front lines, fearing that Moscow would escalate and start a full-scale war.
Despite his absence, Serhiy was always a good father and husband. Sova said he would always hear her voice and was "a shoulder to lean on".
"How much I want to talk to him now, it's hard for me to call him," she said.
Sova is also now struggling financially because it is almost impossible to find work in Nikopol, a city across the river from the Russian-occupied Zapolo thermal nuclear power plant in Enehodar that is shelled daily.
In Izium, liberated from Kharkov region, workers exhumed the body of an unknown man in a massive cemetery containing about 450 graves.
Say goodbye
In order to officially confirm the death of her husband, a few days after the large-scale excavations at the cemetery began, Sova traveled to Kharkiv Oblast to confirm the identity of the body.
The body was badly decomposed, so she was asked to look at one of the tattoos to identify her husband. The body was then handed over to the family for burial.
The National Emergency Management Agency reported on September 25 that 447 bodies had been exhumed from the massive cemetery in Izium. All but 22 of the bodies belonged to civilians. Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synyehubov said most of the bodies had "signs of violent death" and 30 of them had traces of torture.
A week after Serhiy's body was found, the family held a private funeral in Nikopol. On the evening of September 24, Russian President Dzélensky posthumously awarded Shelly the title of "Hero of Ukraine."
Although their hometown is now on the southern front and is shelled daily, Sowa said she would not leave their home with warm memories of their 15-year marriage.
"[15 years with Serhiy] was the best thing in my life," Sova said. "He was the best man in my life."