KYIV, Ukraine — In the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago, Maryna Homeniuk joined the millions of Ukrainians forced to flee the violence to seek safety abroad. Like many displaced Ukrainians, she prioritized continuing her education, completing her university degree in the Czech Republic and adding Vietnamese to her already extensive roster of spoken languages before making the choice to return to her home country in 2023. It was after her return that she met Yurii Orlov, the man who would become her beloved partner.
That shared future the couple planned was cut devastatingly short last Thursday, when they became two of the 24 civilian lives lost in a massive wave of Russian airstrikes across Ukraine — a barrage Ukrainian military officials have called the largest single air attack of the entire war. A Russian cruise missile directly struck the apartment building where Homeniuk and Orlov lived, reducing their home to rubble.
On Saturday, friends and family gathered at Homeniuk’s funeral to lay the 24-year-old English teacher to rest. They had hoped to honor Orlov alongside her, but recovery work meant his remains were not prepared for burial in time for the joint service.
Friends remembered Homeniuk as a deeply compassionate young woman with a life full of unfulfilled dreams. “She was a very caring person. I feel very sorry, because she had so many dreams. She worked with children and wanted to have children herself someday, when times were safer,” her close friend Olesia Yukhnovych told the Associated Press in an interview.
By all accounts, Homeniuk was a gifted linguist: friends confirm she spoke approximately 10 languages, including fluent Mandarin Chinese and Korean. A sensitive, warm-hearted person, she often took in stray and abandoned animals, and nurtured a deep love of travel, saving for months to fund adventures to new countries around the world.
“This is a young person. This is a girl who had absolutely the whole future ahead of her,” said Anastasiia Petrushyna, who worked alongside Homeniuk and counted her as a close friend. “This future will no longer exist — our youth basically can’t have it. You never know what trouble awaits you.”
Orlov, 30 at the time of his death, was a committed athlete: he played hockey for multiple teams across Kyiv before going on to captain the Kyiv Floorball Club. Though the pair came from different interests — he centered his life around sports, while Homeniuk’s passion was art — everyone close to them could see the deep love they shared.
A beloved weekly tradition bonded the couple: Homeniuk never missed a Sunday game that Orlov played. He taught her the rules and skills of floorball, a variant of hockey played on indoor surfaces, and in return, she helped him improve his English language skills.
For Yukhnovych, the contrast between what was supposed to be and the grim reality of the day cuts unbearably deep. “It’s a shame. I should have been helping prepare for the wedding and I ended up helping prepare for the funeral,” she said. “It’s horrible.”
The couple’s deaths come amid a brutal, unrelenting series of Russian attacks on Kyiv that have stretched through the winter. They had often talked with friends about their desire to move out of their Darnytsia neighborhood, located on Kyiv’s left bank, where power outages from Russian strikes persisted far longer than in other parts of the capital. But like many Ukrainians, they could not afford the cost of relocating to a safer area.
In the chaotic hours after Thursday’s airstrike, Yukhnovych sent a text message to Homeniuk to check in, a precaution many Ukrainians take after attacks to confirm loved ones are safe. “You never think something could happen to someone close to you, and you just message them as a precaution,” she said. “I never thought this would be one of those times when the message would remain unread.”