On a clear spring day in June 2025, videographer Mykyta Shapovalov posed a newlywed soldier with the callsign "Wolf" and his wife Olena in front of a statue of two lovers kissing in the eastern city of Druzhkivka.

The square that day was bustling with life.

“There were always a lot of people in this place because there was a market nearby," the Ukrainian videographer recalled. As the couple posed, Shapovalov says trams rumbled by, and locals “were relaxing in cafes or coming to run their errands."

The small square had long been used for wedding ceremonies and photo sessions due to its proximity to the city's registry office.

In November 2025, trams in Druzhkvika ceased operating as the war drew nearer. Today, the Monument to Lovers stands surrounded by the wreckage of war, and wedding parties would be risking their lives to gather there.

Iryna Rybakova, a press officer with Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade posted a video on March 2 of Ukrainian soldiers scrambling to shoot down a drone as it buzzed directly over the lovers’ statue before destroying a car parked nearby.

Russian forces have made incremental territorial gains around Druzhkvika in recent months. The invading army is now less than 20 kilometers from the city as it continues a push on nearby Kostyantynivka. That distance puts Druzhkvika within range of rocket artillery systems and long-range first-person-view drones trailing fiber optic cables that are immune to jamming.

Russian strikes, including aerial glide bombs launched from aircraft, have killed several people in the city in recent weeks. In early February, seven in a market in Druzhkivka were killed by a rocket reportedly carrying cluster munitions.

The small square in the city center where the lovers' statue stands was once the site of a monument to Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that was pulled down in June 2015. Amid a major reconstruction of the Druzhkivka city center, the Monument to Lovers was built, just near the city’s registry office in August 2019.

On March 6, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky chose the Druzhkivka lovers' monument as the backdrop for a short video address as armed soldiers patrolled in the background. After thanking soldiers fighting around Druzhkivka and other Donbas cities, he warned that, "here in the Donetsk region [Russian forces] are preparing an offensive for the spring."

For videographer Mykyta Shapovalov, watching the once thriving Ukrainian city of Druzhkivka being ground down by war will forever be bound up with his memories of filming "Wolf," whose real name was Fedir, marry his partner Olena.

Fedir had spent much of his life in prison and was given an amnesty to join the military with just a few months left of his jail term. Rybakova told RFE/RL that he was killed in battle soon after his first deployment.