‘I can't remember when I last felt this happy’

Taras and his daughter hand in hand on the Portuguese coast

By Kathrin Franziska Beck

Sunday 8 March 2026

For war-separated families, moments of togetherness are precious, with even small journeys or familiar traditions carrying profound emotional significance.

Escaping the cold at home after a long, dark winter by travelling to Portugal; spending your birthday abroad; and showing your daughter the place where you got engaged. These are ordinary things for many families. For Oksana and Taras, however, such experiences are especially precious, since being able to share them together is far from certain.

Oksana, 35, and Taras, 37, are a Ukrainian couple with one child. Before the full-scale war reshaped their lives, Taras managed a pump manufacturing company in Kharkiv. Like many Ukrainian soldiers, he came from civilian life. In July 2024, he enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

By then, the family had already been forced to leave Kharkiv because of the war and relocate to Lviv. There, Oksana and Taras started a new business together. When Taras joined the military, Oksana took over running the company. Alongside her work, she also volunteers at the vulica Porokhova centre in Lviv, where volunteers produce camouflage nets to help protect Ukrainian military equipment and soldiers.

Before the war, the couple had a tradition. Taras proposed to Oksana the day after her birthday at Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of mainland Europe. From then on, they have travelled to Portugal every year at this time. Since her husband joined the military, she has long dreamed of returning to this place.

In December 2025, in the middle of a bitterly cold winter, she said that she hoped to travel to Portugal with her husband again in February 2026. She had not seen him since the summer of 2025. 'We would love to show our daughter the place where Taras proposed to me,' she added.

On 20 January 2026, Oksana wrote with new developments. 'At the moment, the news is not very encouraging, and our vacation is now uncertain. I don’t know whether we will be able to make everything we planned happen. Still, I told my husband that we will come to see him if the leave is not approved.' It would not have been the first time she had travelled east to be with him. After almost a year apart, Oksana once went with their daughter to a town near the front line to reunite with her husband. The place where they met is now under Russian occupation. 'This separation is very hard to endure,' she wrote.

Then, on 4 February 2026, the long-awaited message arrived. 'My husband was granted leave. We are leaving for the border tomorrow. I am very happy.' One day later, Oksana shared a photograph taken by her father. It shows her and her daughter taking a selfie on a sofa in Poland; Taras sits quietly in the background. 'I can’t remember when I last felt this happy,' she wrote. A few days later, the family finally made it to Portugal.

Looking back, Oksana describes the trip as a long-awaited moment of joy: 'We had a wonderful holiday together; just as we had dreamed for so long. We showed our daughter Portugal and Cabo da Roca; the place where Taras proposed to me. We cherish every moment.'

Oksana and Taras are not isolated cases. Many Ukrainian families share their fate. For families separated by war, such moments are rare; and all the more precious.