Yana
Senyk
Wife of a fallen servicemember
Yana Senyk describes her late husband, Junior Sergeant Serhiy Senyk, who was killed near the village of Mykolaivka Druha in Donetsk Oblast at the end of September 2022, with words full of love and admiration:
“I can say that this is a once-in-a-lifetime love. He was a decent, conscientious man with a capital ‘M.’ In six years of marriage, there was never a single argument, a single quarrel. He is calm, and I am a hurricane. He softens, I stir up waves,” Yana recalls.
Serhiy was born in the village of Stepovi Khutory, and Yana in the neighboring village of Yasna Zirka in Chernihiv region. They had known each other since childhood at large family gatherings — his uncle and her aunt were married. Serhiy was nine years older than Yana. They reconnected in 2016 and quickly realized they could not be apart. In 2017, their daughter Sofiyka was born.
The night before Sofiyka’s fifth birthday, Yana had a dream: her aunt entered the house and said, “I don’t know how to tell you, but he’s gone.” At the time, Serhiy’s unit was leaving positions, and they had had no contact with him for three days. On September 30, while preparing to celebrate Sofiyka’s birthday, the aunt appeared again and repeated the words from Yana’s dream: “Serhiy is dead. His uncle informed us.”
Yana recalls living on black chocolate and coffee for the next five days, refusing sedatives so as not to cloud her mind, determined to do everything correctly. The military commissariat confirmed Serhiy’s death only a few days later. Yana then organized a trip with acquaintances to Dnipro to retrieve his body, taking her aunt, a medic, and her brother-in-law with her.
The identification of Serhiy’s body and the journey home were difficult. There were no ceremonial flags waiting for them — local authorities had miscalculated the timing. In the morgue, no preparations had been made: Serhiy’s body was washed and dressed by Yana and two other women.
“I was always strong,” Yana says. “But when deaths began in the family — three grandmothers in eight months, my mother a year before the full-scale war, and the 2014 war when you were in college and had to go choose a bulletproof vest for your uncle… when you make these difficult decisions, you mature earlier than you should. You take responsibility on yourself.”
She remembers Serhiy often saying, “You are strong. Endure, endure — endurance polishes you.” He seemed to be preparing her for the future: “You are strong, you can do far more than you think.” And over time, she realized it was true.
Yana herself has a resilient, battle-tested character, honed through sports and natural leadership skills. She is an active doer, unafraid of conflicts, and always stands up for justice. After Serhiy’s death, she left her job and home in the lane named after him in Stepovi Khutory, moved to Kyiv, and is now preparing to study military psychology — aiming to grow both professionally and personally.
Sofiyka, like her father, sings and participates in many extracurricular activities. Recently, she visited Paris with her mother, ran a five-kilometer marathon, and at six years old, climbed Hoverla — all in honor of her father.
Yana has become a “commander” in her extended family: helping Serhiy’s parents make decisions and supporting her sister’s family. She is active in public life: contributing to three books mentioning her husband, participating in a documentary about him, and helping renovate a classroom in his honor at the Stepovi Khutory school. Yana now plans to create a book not only about fallen husbands but also about the women waiting at home who hold countless responsibilities.
«If it wasn't for the war, we would have had a son too. We had planned to buy a car and even built a garage, but it didn’t happen — later I bought the car myself and got a driver’s license. He wanted to get a tattoo before the war — so I did it on the 40th day — and then I felt a bit lighter, as if I had done what he wanted. In my dreams, he reassured me that he is always near. And I know it. We cannot bring back our closest people, but we have our children — and our life does not end».