When Russia invaded Ukraine, Maria knew she had to travel there and help protect her homeland, even if it meant leaving her fiancé in Chicago only days after their wedding. Maria and her fiancé, David, married in the backyard of an Oak Park home in front of approximately 20 guests on Saturday — a last-minute site supplied after Maria sought to advise in a local Facebook group. Last year, the pair met and became engaged in October.
She planned to go to Poland on Monday, then to the Ukrainian border, where she hopes to enlist to fight for her homeland.
“People are running out of there and she is running in,” said a friend at the wedding, Pamela Chinchilla of Lombard.
Maria was given medical supplies, masks, and other goods by seven wedding guests to send to Ukraine. People exchanged hugs, and Maria chatted with family members in Odesa at one point.
Maria, who requested anonymity because she is concerned about her family’s safety in Ukraine and the United States, said she lived with her parents in Kyiv until 1991, when the family relocated to Poland.
Maria’s first marriage had ended in divorce. She met her ex-husband while studying music in Austria, and they relocated to his hometown of Chicago, which boasts the second-largest Ukrainian-born community in the United States, more than 20 years ago.
Since the war began, she has used Facebook messages and calls to communicate with her parents, who have been hiding in a parking garage throughout bombardment on Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port city. She said, however, that she had been unable to contact cousins in Kyiv in recent days.
Maria decided to return to Ukraine three days after the invasion began, determined to find a way to help. She has no medical or military experience, but she is concerned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine will encourage Russia to attack other countries across the world.
“I have to go,” Maria, 44, said. “I can’t do protests or fundraising or wave flags. We’ve done this since 2015, Ukrainians, and I just can’t do it anymore.”
Despite Maria’s objections to his following her, her fiancé refused to remain behind. However, because David must first apply for a passport, she intends to leave on Monday and wait in Poland before crossing the border.
“He knows how stubborn I am and knew he’d have no chance to convince me otherwise,” Maria said.
David, 42, said he feels a responsibility to do what he can to keep her safe.
“Because complacency and compliance are pretty much the same thing,” he said. “And you can only turn a blind eye to people being bullied for so long. And if it happens to them, it might be you next.”
