I first met Oksana Dudar at the funeral of her husband, Viktor, in March 2022. He was 44 years old when he was killed defending the town of Voznesensk in southern Ukraine.
Oksana’s description of their farewell at the recruitment centre on the morning of the full-scale invasion was unforgettable. “My heart told me not to let him go, but I knew I could not change his mind,” she said, standing by his graveside. “I told him it is better to be the widow of a hero than the wife of a coward. He was very proud of me for saying that.”
Oksana’s grief at the loss of her husband was to me emblematic of the grief of the nation. I wanted to know where life has taken her since.
Less than a month after Viktor’s death, a friend asked her if she would go on volunteer missions, ferrying flak jackets, helmets and supplies to soldiers in Viktor’s 80th airborne brigade. The dangerous missions were a lifeline for her.
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Like her husband, Oksana was a journalist. Her first book, Widow’s Diaries, in which she recounts the year following Viktor’s death, won the grand prize in the Ukrainian Institute of Books competition. “When Viktor was killed, many things lost meaning for me,” she says. “I didn’t know what to do. I was clinging to those missions. Writing the book helped me a great deal.”
Oksana recounts her first trip to the front. “We drove for a day and a half in a minivan. We got as far as Ochakiv and we heard what I thought was thunder. It was a barrage of Grad missiles. We slept on the floor of a hotel with soldiers from the 80th brigade. Looking at photos later, I discovered that I slept next to an automatic rifle. I wasn’t frightened at all because I was numb with grief. That has changed now. I feel afraid sometimes.”
By chance, that first mission took Oksana to Voznesensk, where Viktor died. The Russians occupied part of the town but were driven out. “That’s where I understood the meaning of scorched earth,” she says. “No one from my team knew that Viktor had died there. I didn’t want anyone to know, so I sat in the back of the van and cried. It was dark and we had to drive very slowly. There were felled trees, smashed concrete and signs warning of minefields everywhere.”
In one of those surreal touches often experienced in war, the devastated town was overrun with pheasants.
Oksana wanted to know how Viktor died. “First I was told it was a Grad bombardment. Then I heard there were street skirmishes. I tried unsuccessfully to find people who could tell me.”
Six months after Viktor’s death, Oksana visited a wounded comrade of Viktor’s in hospital. “He told me a guy in his ward fought next to Viktor on the day he was killed. He asked if I wanted to talk to him. I got scared and said no.”
She did what she often does when she feels lost. She went to Lychakiv cemetery and sat beside Viktor’s grave. “In the beginning I went every day,” she says. “I still go as often as I can, several times a month. Viktor sees me and knows what I’m doing.” Because Lychakiv can accommodate no more graves, Lviv had to open another cemetery.
Her courage restored, Oksana returned to the hospital the following day to talk to the soldier who had witnessed Viktor’s death. “Viktor was on the roof of a school with an assault rifle, covering for a soldier who was firing anti-tank missiles. Usually they fire only twice and relocate because after the second missile the enemy knows where they are. The first two launches were unsuccessful, so the soldier fired four times. That’s when the sniper shot Viktor. The bullet pierced his lung. He had massive bleeding and died on the spot.”
Oksana doesn’t blame the soldier for not moving to a new position. “I blame Putin and the Russians,” she says. She takes comfort from the fact that Viktor and his comrade destroyed a Russian armoured vehicle before Viktor was killed. A woman called Olena, who evacuated bodies for the 80th airborne brigade, told her there were skirmishes and many losses in Voznesensk that day.
Oksana says the hardest thing was to return to active life. Sophia, her and Viktor’s adult daughter, also a journalist, took over. “I am very thankful because at a time when I was helpless, she took control. It was hard for her, but she’s been very strong.”
Her Greek Catholic faith also helped her. She travelled to Israel with a priest and a group of pilgrims and visited the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, as well as Malta, Greece and Croatia.
She has written a second book, a novel about post-traumatic stress disorder, based on the experience of Serhiy Tatarenko, a helicopter pilot who was shot down near Slovyansk, lost his legs and now heads a disability centre in Lviv.
Oksana’s third book is based on Viktor’s stories from the 2014 war in Donbas, when he first volunteered. “Viktor was a great raconteur. His friends told him, ‘You should write a book,’ Now I’ve written a collection of Viktor’s army tales for him. There’s one story written from the point of view of his boots, a pair of Italian-made Forester boots that were so damaged he threw them away in Luhansk. They were bright orange and easily recognisable. One day he saw a man wearing them and asked, ‘Where did you get those boots?’ and the man said, ‘I found them in Luhansk’.”
Oksana now works as a spokesperson for the police academy and handles media for a Ukrainian NGO. She organises an annual marathon in Viktor’s name to mark Heroes’ Day, May 23rd, to raise funds for the military. And she is working with a US film-maker on a documentary in the hope of raising awareness of the war in Europe and the US.
When he left for the front, Viktor told Uliana Vityuk, his boss at Expres weekly, that there were two loves in his life: Oksana and Ukraine.
God willing, Oksana says, she may one day remarry. In the meantime, she often talks to Viktor. “I tell him about my work and my achievements. I try to tell him nice things. Viktor was my best friend. We shared so many things. Sometimes I really want to ask him a question. Sometimes I get an answer in my dreams.”
She misses walking home together in the evening after work. Viktor always held her hand. She misses going to Mass with him on Sundays, cooking the traditional Sunday dinner together and drinking wine.
Like Ukraine itself, Oksana has suffered a terrible blow, but like Ukraine she is recovering and moving forward with a sense of purpose, even as the war continues. “Are you happy?” I ask her. “I will be happy when we win and everyone comes home,” she says.
I ask Oksana to autograph the copy of Widow’s Diaries that she brought me as a gift. “With best wishes and faith in victory,” she writes on the title page.
