Two Ukrainian women in love were torn apart by Putin’s war. They never stopped fighting to reunite.

Polina Muzhychkova and Sofia Malina fell in love fast. At 17 and 19, respectively, they met in Mariupol, Ukraine, and began dating. But a month later, the Russian Army invaded – and obliterated –their city. They were quickly torn apart, forced to flee and hide with their respective families.

A recent profile in the New York Times depicts their valiant (and successful) efforts over two years to find their way back to each other.

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Malina and her mother were detained in a basement for four days by Russian soldiers. When they were inexplicably released, they escaped to Ukrainian-held territory.

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Muzhychkova and her parents hid in the basement of their Mariupol apartment building for two months with no electricity or heat. When an explosion destroyed their building and injured Muzhychkova, they fled to Crimea.

The two young women continued to talk and kept track of one another, and eventually, Malina made it to Crimea, where the pair moved in together and spent a year planning their escape. Crimea was safer, but the people there overwhelmingly supported Putin.

“So many people said, ‘The city was destroyed because you were resisting,’ and ‘Your country is the worst,’” Muzhychkova told the Times, explaining that many were the victims of Russian propaganda.

Muzhychkova’s own family supported Russia as well, which is why she decided to leave. “It was extraordinarily scary and painful to leave because of my parents,” she said. “It does not matter who they are; they did a lot for me.”

So, the couple did not even tell their families when they began their journey by bus back to Ukraine.

The journey was rough. They endured physical abuse by Russian police at the border. “They grabbed me by the hair and punched me in the face,” Malina said, adding that she was subject to interrogations about her allegiance to Russia and whether she was a lesbian because she dyed her hair.

But they made it, and they spent the summer working as baristas in Odesa together, sharing their story.

Ultimately, they plan to move to Germany together.

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