An India-Ukraine Love Story: Couple Beats the Odds, Reunites at Delhi Airport

The couple met in late 2019, when Anna was visiting India for vacation.

(Photo: The Quint)

Video Editor: Puneet Bhatia

Ukranian Anna Horodetska was all set to marry her Indian lawyer fiancé Anubhav Bhasin in an intimate ceremony in Delhi in March 2022. But Russia had other plans and invaded the country, putting the couple in jeopardy.

The couple met in late 2019, when Anna was visiting India for a vacation. While they met and exchanged numbers, the connection grew stronger when she was stuck in India during the coronavirus pandemic.

"We had three fights since the invasion began. The first was when he asked me to leave Kyiv and I told him Russia would not invade. The second was when he begged me to board a train but I did not want to. And the third time we fought was when he asked me to stay in the bunker."

Anna Horodestka to The Indian Express

Anna was determined to reach India at any cost. She first travelled to Poland, where she spent two weeks, before she was granted a two-year Indian visa.

She fled Kyiv with just a change of clothes and a coffee machine that her grandmother had given her as a wedding gift.

“I told her, are you crazy, there is a war and you are carrying a coffee machine. She said this was our wedding gift and she would not leave it behind,” Anubhav told The Indian Express.

And when she landed at the Delhi Airport on 17 March, little did she expect to be welcomed by the dhol and a surprise proposal.

As Anna waits for the war to end in Ukraine, she said she misses her dog Bao – whom she left with her grandmother at Kamyanka village in Cherkasy region.

The couple has decided to get married on 27 April.