When Maria and Ivan met, the prospect of a full-scale war in Ukraine seemed impossible.
Maria was an English teacher at a local children's club in western Ukraine attended by the daughter of one of Ivan's comrades. The comrade offered to set Ivan up with Maria, who he described as "a very nice teacher".
At first Ivan felt pressured by the arrangement - but he eventually agreed to come.
He was glad he did. They soon started seeing each other.
On one of their first dates, Ivan warned Maria he had a dangerous job. She said it wouldn't be a problem. Ivan was courageous, caring and protective, and Maria was falling in love.
He soon had to go on a long-term deployment far from home. They lost touch for a year, and it seemed like their relationship might be over.
But then he returned with a giant bouquet of flowers and promised her he didn't want to waste her time. Within a year, the two were married and they were soon expecting their first child.
It was only once Russia launched its full-scale invasion that Maria understood what he'd meant about the harsh realities of his work.
Their daughter Yaroslava was only three months old at the time. Ivan missed her early milestones: helping her take her first steps, seeing her first teeth come through and comforting her during her first illness.
"When Ivan is deployed far away from home, I send him thousands of our daughter's photos to help him feel that at least virtually he is spending the day with us," says Maria.
On one nearby mission, Maria put her daughter in a pram and rushed to a checkpoint where he could run out to catch them for five minutes.
She brought him home-made food. They talked. And found that every minute together was worth the months they'd spent waiting.
Before Yaroslava could even speak, she would use her tiny hands to gesture that her dad was flying through the skies.
"Our daughter knows that her dad is a pilot," she says. "When she had a birthday and her father ate a birthday cake over a video call, we explained to her that he couldn't be with us as he was defending Ukraine from the Russians."