The Full Story is a partnership between Fuller and Foreign Policy.

Ulyana was living at her parents’ home in Ternopil in western Ukraine when she received the news that her husband of five years, a Ukrainian soldier named Vlad, had reportedly died by suicide in 2023 while at a military base near the front lines.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ulyana and their then-two-year-old son had moved to Ternopil as Russia began to occupy parts of the Kyiv region. Vlad stayed behind and joined Kyiv’s territorial defense, which was comprised of volunteers who took up arms alongside the military to halt Russian advances.

Ulyana was living at her parents’ home in Ternopil in western Ukraine when she received the news that her husband of five years, a Ukrainian soldier named Vlad, had reportedly died by suicide in 2023 while at a military base near the front lines.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ulyana and their then-two-year-old son had moved to Ternopil as Russia began to occupy parts of the Kyiv region. Vlad stayed behind and joined Kyiv’s territorial defense, which was comprised of volunteers who took up arms alongside the military to halt Russian advances.

When Ulyana and her mother-in-law saw Vlad’s body in the morgue, she was in denial. As his mother cried out, “Oh, Vlad! Oh, Vlad!” Ulyana said, “Is it really him? I don’t think it is.”

At her two-room apartment in Kyiv, Ulyana asked to be referred to by her first name, and the identity of her son withheld, because few in her life know that Vlad’s official death ruling is labeled as a suicide, including her son.

Ukraine pays out compensation to war widows and families of fallen soldiers under certain circumstances, provided certain criteria are met. But in cases where a soldier’s death has been declared as a suicide, which Ukraine classifies as a noncombat loss, war widows and families are not entitled to receive any compensation.

At the start of the war in 2022, the government announced that a one-time payment of 15 million Ukrainian hryvnias (approximately $335,000) would be offered to the families of soldiers killed while defending their motherland on the front lines, known as a “gray certificate.” In September 2024, the government introduced a second option, the so-called “black certificate,” which allows families to claim 2.7 million hryvnias ($60,400) over seven years and is typically issued when a soldier dies while on duty, but not at the front, unlike the gray certificate.

At first, Ulyana said Vlad’s brigade told her that her husband had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. She told Fuller that she refuses to accept this, noting that just hours before his death, they had spoken on the phone and discussed buying a new tactical vest for him. She also told Fuller that she believes that Vlad was murdered by someone in his assault brigade, an allegation that she cannot prove and says the military has denied.

In her small bedroom, Ulyana pulled out a box from under a desk with items belonging to Vlad—the official notice of his death, his military identification card, and his death certificate. It showed that his cause of death was empty and was left blank when she received it. With no official cause given, her compensation claim is in limbo.

Ulyana hired a lawyer to argue that her husband had been killed by someone in his brigade and died as a hero of Ukraine, but the court case has continued for years.

“I don’t think our government cares … we have no rights. I’m the wife of a soldier who died. Do I feel pain differently?” Ulyana said.

In the country’s western city of Lviv, Roman Lykhachov, an independent lawyer who works with Ukraine’s military and their families, said that he has handled hundreds of cases involving war widows........

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