You're reading: Even separatists take breaks from killing to find love amid Russia’s war against Ukraine

Сupid has managed to maneuver even between hails of bullets in Ukraine's conflict-stricken Donbas, where Russia-backed militants continue to control large sections of the eastern Donbas. Cupid's arrows can also strike, too, and some of hit the hearts of militants and their soul mates.

Motorola
and Olena the Beautiful

Arsen
Petrov, a 32-year-old native of Russia’s Komi Republic, is better known
by his nickname Motorola. He came to Ukraine last March as a volunteer
to fight Ukrainian forces in the Donbas. Motorola presents himself as a Christian and remembered this bit of wisdom from the Bible: “of
every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort” – and so he
decided to find himself a bride.

Motorola’s
marriage to Olena Kolenina, 22, a young local from Sloviansk, was the
first official wedding in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’
Republic. The newlyweds were given a separatist marriage certificate
numbered 0001 during the ceremony on July 11, 2014.

The
couple went through with the wedding even despite the fact that
Motorola already had a family.

In an
interview with Russian newspaper “Zavtra” (Tomorrow) on June 19,
2014, Motorola confessed that he had a wife and a five-year-old son
back in Russia. Journalists also discovered that the notorious rebel
fighter had been convicted in 2012 after stealing a car from a car
wash service in Russia’s Rostov-on-Don where he was working at the
time.

Olena Kolenina and Arsen Petrov
who is better known by his nickname Motorola got married in Donetsk on July 11, 2014.

None of
this raised an eyebrow with Kolenina. The happy bride
got all decked out for the ceremony, wearing a dress so tight that
her impressive breasts nearly spilled out. For accessories, she went
with a St. George’s ribbon and a pistol.

The
groom, wearing camouflage attire with his arm in a plaster cast, was
twice as short as his lady-love. Ragu.li, a popular Ukrainian tabloid
blog, dedicated an entire article to Motorola’s marriage.

“This
first wedding in the (separatist) DNR was certainly a circus. Although it could
not have been any different, because it had to meet the DNR’s
paradigm,” Ragu.li wrote on July 12, 2014. This was one of the
mildest comments regarding the marriage, as Ukrainian Internet users
actively discussed the event on forums and social networks.

BMW
and the Doll

Another
Donetsk rebel with a catchy nickname – BMW – tied the knot with
his bride on January 14. Yevhen Zhabsky, 27, a native of the Hrodivka
village in the Donetsk region, married Marina Koval, otherwise known
as Kukla, or Doll.

Donetsk rebel with catchy nickname BMV Yevhen Zhabsky tied the knot with his
bride Marina Koval, otherwise known as Kukla, or Doll in Donetsk on Jan. 14, 2015.

The
ceremony was apparently attended only by a group of Russia-backed
separatists from the Vostok battalion, who got all dressed up in
camouflage for the event, judging by the wedding video. The militant
marriage ceremony took place in one of Donetsk’s public registry
offices. But the newlyweds did not get a marriage certificate.
Instead, they were given an “official document” certifying their
marriage and signed by members of the Vostok battalion, keeping the
issue of their marriage validity open.

The
bride seemed to be experiencing sheer bliss from her marriage. She
even shared her marriage video and photos with journalists from the
Donetsk NewsFront TV Channel. The video quickly went viral, causing
an uproar in gossip columns.

Oksana
Mamedova and Dmytro Shynkarenko

The new
family of Oksana Mamedova and Dmytro Shynkarenko, two pro-Russian
militants, was born in Donetsk on October 2014. Many Ukrainian
websites wrote that the bride’s nickname was Krysa, or Rat, while
the groom’s alias was Bolt, according to the Donetsk-based
Novorossiya news agency.

Oksana
Mamedova and Dmytro Shynkarenko, the two
local pro-Russian militants, got married in Donetsk on Oct.17, 2014.

“Terrorists
from the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ have yet another marriage. A
certain Lyalya with the sweet nickname ‘Rat’ got married to a man
with a no less tender nickname, Bolt,” the Ukrainian Press news
website wrote on Oct. 17, 2014. The accuracy of their nicknames
could not be independently verified.

According
to Ukrainian Press news website the groom’s nickname is “Bolt,” his lady love
is known as “Lyalya the Rat.” However, the accuracy of their nicknames could
not be independently verified. Briitish journalist Graham Phillips is front and center in this wedding celebration photo.

“Love
during war for me is like a ray of light in the darkness,” Mamedova
said happily just a few minutes before the official marriage ceremony
in Donetsk’s registry office. Embarrassingly, the pair encountered
trouble before the ceremony was even over: their wedding rings turned
out to be too tight, and they could barely put the rings on.

Kyiv
Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at
[email protected]