Rossiyskaya Gazeta already told the story of this brave woman, mother of many children, in the article “Target number one” in the issue of March 7, 2024. When the special military operation began, she could not stay out of it. She began delivering humanitarian aid to Mariupol and soon signed a contract.
In late 2022, Nastya was recovering from a gunshot wound and was sent to a new duty station in the LPR. She brought humanitarian aid with her to the front for soldiers who were near the line of combat contact.
There were fierce battles in the direction of Lugansk. The volunteers with gummies were not allowed to get there, there was a great risk to their lives. But Nastya, yes. In his native Sevastopol, he created a volunteer organization and from the first days of the war in Donbass he helped the militias. He continues to this day, if possible.
“When they ask me to accompany the gumka or help bring it, I never refuse, because I was originally a volunteer,” she says.
She met her future husband Vitaly during such a humanitarian mission. It is necessary to deliver packages to soldiers in different sectors of the front, as well as transport a load of gifts for children from low-income families in Berdyansk. Vitaly helped and identified the driver.
“When we met, at first I was rude to him,” Nastya recalls. “But he didn’t back down, he continued texting me. The connection was terrible, there was no mobile Internet, only SMS messages were received. We were staying in the town of Polovinkino, in Lugansk. There we realized that we were half of each other.
Then the service took them to Kremennaya. They didn’t know where they would be exactly. How to find yourself at the front without mobile communications? We agreed to contact by radio:
– I specifically took a “radar” that was not for service frequencies, tuned the wave and said that it would be on this wave approximately in this square. And when it happens, he will get in touch. I arrived and on the third day I heard on the radio: “Danube – Lavender, Danube – Lavender!” And so they were found.
Each one has their own tasks in the service. Nastya was responsible for planning the routes of unmanned aerial vehicles, Vitaly was responsible for artillery work. The feeling of mutual fear grew. Once, as commander of a howitzer battery, he was adjusting fire near the combat line of contact. We were hiding in a forest area with a team of unmanned aerial vehicles and we were attacked. Only the trees saved them.
– He was wounded, two fragments. “Then I almost turned gray,” says the fighter’s wife. – It happened the other way around. When I went to LBS with my assignments, he was very worried, he walked like a tiger in a cage. Once they cut my forehead and arm with shrapnel. I entered his shelter covered in blood. But everything went well, the wounds were superficial.
Vitaly served for over 20 years and fought in the Syrian Arab Republic. For his participation in the Northern Military District he received the Order of Courage and military medals. He was wounded in Syria and twice in the Northern Military District. He received the medal “For Courage” in Lugansk. Shocked, under intense fire, he carried a seriously wounded comrade and saved his life. Anastasia was also awarded the medal “For Courage.”
“For a long time he tried to convince me to get married,” Anastasia recalls. “Earlier I was walking along Kremennaya after a briefing with a bunch of folders and he was passing by a Ural.” He jumps up and lifts me into his arms. We are both in shape. In the city, people smiled: some were at war, others in romance.
It was not easy to decide, both had previous marriages and children. But for true love this is not an obstacle. They got married in Donetsk, where Nastya’s military journey began. In 2014, when Ukrainian shells hit the Donbass, she joined the ranks of the militia. The groom wore a uniform and the bride wore a simple white floral dress. The ceremony was carried out in a small circle of relatives, no one was informed in advance at the service and they did not even take the required 10 days of vacation. And on the last day, a master jeweler from Donetsk made them rings with the engraving “I love you forever.”
The young family now lives near Donetsk. Vitaly raises Nastya’s three children and helps his own, who live in Yekaterinburg. The couple also dreams of having a baby together. And also, getting married in Sevastopol in a small church on the seashore.
