As Ukraine’s cemeteries have filled with dead soldiers, a legion of war widows has been growing.

It is impossible to say how many widows this war has created because Ukraine closely guards its casualty figures. But estimates suggest they number in the tens of thousands.

The widows all have loss in common. But they cope in their own way.

Iryna Sharhorodska, 29, always told her husband everything. His death did not change that; for over a year, she has visited his grave daily to speak to him.

Her husband, Oleksandr Sharhorodskyi, was killed in May 2023, days before Russian forces captured the city of Bakhmut. Sharhorodska said she was haunted by questions after stumbling across a video on social media that showed medics trying to save him.

“I looked and was trying to imagine how it was for him,” she said. “What was he thinking? Was he in pain?”

Her two children — Sofiia, 7, and Tymofii, 5 — often speak about their father. The passage of time has not softened their pain.

“They say time helps, but it is not true,” she said. “I would say the opposite; it only gets worse.”

Some widows seek out assistance through support groups, which have sprung up across Ukraine to offer therapy, community and coping skills.

Natalia Zvir thought she was managing her own grief after her husband, Volodymyr, died. Worried that their four children were struggling, she joined a support group for their sake. There, she realized that she “really needed help, too.”

One Friday in April, Zvir sat with around two dozen women and their children at a group therapy retreat hosted by the Unbroken Mother project in Morshyn, Ukraine.

“We get close with those who share similar pain and give each other advice,” Zvir said. There was bubble blowing, breathing exercises, doll making, story sharing — and tears.

“I cried all through the first session, and by the third session, I was crying only at the end,” she added. “I think this is positive change.”

Viktoriia Zavhorodnia was six months pregnant when her husband, Oleksandr, was killed in March 2023.

She went back to her work as an interior designer after only five days, seeking a distraction from the pain.

“I cried a lot. I cried an ocean of tears,” Zavhorodnia said. As hard as it was to carry on, she said she knew “it was necessary to live for the sake of the child.”

She joined a support group called My Love, I’m Alive in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.

“They understood me, and I understood them,” Zavhorodnia said.

She still mourns the loss of her husband and the dreams they had shared — for a big house, a big family. But she is grateful for her son, Roman, now a toddler.

Support groups, though, are not for everyone. Many people find it easier to process their loss alone — or at least try to.

That is the case for widowers such as Artem Bozhko, 31. His wife, Kateryna Shynkarenko, was a sniper in the Ukrainian army. She died in February fighting Russian forces in eastern Ukraine — leaving her husband alone to raise their 7-year-old son, Denys.

Anastasiia Blyshchyk coped with the death of her fiance by joining the Ukrainian army and becoming a press officer in the 47th Brigade. That brought Blyshchyk, 25, into a world she had known largely through her beloved Oleksandr’s video calls from the front line.

“I really started feeling better as I understood that I was useful but also was surrounded by people who live with war,” she said.

Other widows receive support in less-formal ways.

Kateryna Dementiy, 35, and Oksana Tymchuk, 36, knew of each other before Russia’s full-scale invasion. They had bumped into each other in Zaporizhzhia, including at the doctor’s office when both were pregnant.

After the war began, a social media post led to the realization that they both had husbands on the front line. The women met up and went from being acquaintances to friends, bonding over all they had in common — including children the same ages, 3 and 8.

Their shared experiences grew with tragedy. Oksana’s husband, Dmytro, was killed in January 2023; Kateryna’s husband, Artem, died four months later. The men are buried in the same cemetery, a short distance apart.

Both women said they drew closer because other friends could not relate to what they were going through.

“I lost my husband, and then I was, like, in a different group of wives,” Tymchuk said. “It’s like you’re on different sides of the trenches from other people.”

Yulia Zmiyevska, 35, said she struggled to keep up her day-to-day routine after the death of her husband, Anton.

She tried for months to process her grief unassisted but turned to the group My Love, I’m Alive after dark thoughts began to overwhelm her.

Among the range of emotions accompanying the loss of her husband, Zmiyevska has wrestled with guilt, because people said she needed to carry on for her adolescent son, Kiril, but she could not find the strength, and because she miscarried after learning her husband had died.