Maryna Berlizova is sitting on her low bed, a picture of her little daughter stuck in the closet and a pram in the corner, full of baby clothes.
He is stroking his belly distractedly and looking out the window of his mother-in-law’s small three-bedroom house, which he now shares with his children.
In a few weeks the mother of nine will become a mother of 10; her daughter will be born into a large but fatherless family: her husband, Yurii, was killed near Kharkiv on February 24, the first day of the Russian invasion, the day “everything turned upside down.”
“My husband was a soldier,” she said.
“In our free time we always went to the river to have barbecues, everywhere with the children, at the zoo, everywhere.
“We spent all our time as a family, you know, we lived well. There’s nothing. Now there’s no family.”
His pain is immediate and uncontrolled; she sobs between sentences and regularly looks at a photograph of her husband in a military uniform, as if looking for comfort and support.
“He was a good man, he was a kind, responsible man.
“He was a sports instructor in the brigade, they went to competitions.
“He loved to sing and play the guitar.
“It simply came to our notice then. We had plans for both of us and now I’m alone.
“We are proud of you [of him]but it doesn’t make it any easier for us.
“Who needs this war? How many children died? Families are simply destroyed, simply ruined.”
She recently discovered that her husband had died. They did not know anything about him for 77 days as the Russian invasion progressed, claiming more and more lives.
“Of course we are proud. They protected other boys and did not let the column pass in Kharkiv, they only defended it themselves.
“He didn’t even have time to get us out of town. He said, ‘I’ll take you out, then I’ll go to war.’
“In our last conversation he said, ‘I’ll be back when the war is over.’ We’re still waiting …”
Coincidentally, her eldest son is now fighting on the same front line where her husband died.
“He’s only 20, he still doesn’t know anything, he’s still a kid,” he said.
“I am just afraid of him.
“I tried to get him out of the army because of this situation, to help us at home but it is not possible.
“War. Impossible.
“And now he has no mobile connection. But you have to live with that. I can’t even call him to see how he is.
“How can you stand this? It’s hard. Just live and think it’s going to end soon.”
The bedroom door is tightly closed, the children are playing somewhere else. Mourning is done in private.
“Everyone is afraid to cry, so as not to upset others. That’s why we don’t cry. We cry alone but we don’t cry together. You can’t cry. It’s hard, of course.”
I asked her about the Russians, the soldiers who killed her husband.
“These are not people. They are not people at all,” he said.
“They came to our land to destroy our plans for the future, to destroy families.
“I do not know for what purpose they are here and how many more have to die to end this war.
“Three months without sleep. Not sleeping for three months is difficult.
“You are worried about children.
“Where will we go next if they suddenly come here? How much longer will we run? Where are we going?”
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It’s the terrifying dilemma many families face here.
Yurii is buried nearby, buried in the village where he grew up, in a quiet corner of rural Ukraine.
“You’ll find his grave, you’ll know what it is,” Maryna tells us as we say goodbye.
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He is right. In a small cemetery on the other side of the village church field we find him.
Overflowing with flowers and with a picture of him proudly posing in uniform is the final resting place of Sergeant Major Yurii Berlizov: soldier, husband, father; one of the first to die in this horrible war, one of the first of thousands.