The rescue worker and the opera star: Love and fear in wartime Ukraine

As Russia pummels Kharkiv with drones, missiles and glide bombs, Oleksii Skorlupin and his wife are each working to keep their city alive — in their own, very different ways.

He is a rescue worker who digs civilians out from rubble after Russian attacks. His wife, Yulia Antonova, is the lead singer of the Kharkiv Opera, performing for locals on a basement stage.

Under constant threat of airstrikes, the couple are raising their two young children in the vulnerable northeastern city, far from their hometowns and while separated from their parents and other relatives who are living under Russian occupation in Crimea and the southeastern city of Melitopol.

As Ukraine braces for international pressure to negotiate with Russia, the experience of people like Skorlupin and Antonova defies Russian President Vladimir Putin’s narrative that the land he aims to conquer belongs to Moscow.

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