St. Petersburg (AFP) – Lyudmila’s husband, an officer in the Russian army, died in Ukraine in September 2022. To try to overcome the grief, she set up a support service to help other military widows deal with their loss. “It was a huge shock. I didn’t understand what was happening. I felt like the heroine in a very bad film,” the 32-year-old says in an interview, describing the moment she found out her husband had died.