A number of Ukrainian soldiers are using cryopreservation before heading to the front lines as an assurance they will not die without leaving children behind.
One fertility clinic in Kyiv, IVMED, is waiving the $55 fee associated with freezing sperm for soldiers, reported the Associated Press. Dr. Halyna Strelko, the chief doctor at a fertility clinic in Kyiv, told the AP nearly 100 soldiers have visited the clinic to freeze their sperm since the Russian invasion.
Strelko’s clinic had to close at the beginning of the war but reopened after the Russian military retreated from Kyiv. The clinic is now equipped with a backup power supply as Russian missile strikes cause frequent power outages. Strelko told the AP the clinic’s work is more important than ever for couples as Ukraine fights “a very aggressive part of this war with massive losses.”
“We don’t know how else to help. We can only make children or help make them. We don’t have weapons, we can’t fight, but what we do is also important,” Strelko said, according to the AP.
Vitalii Khroniuk, 29, and his wife Anna Sokurenko, 24, are one couple who visited IVMED. Khroniuk joined the war right after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago. He decided to talk to Sokurenko about the process of freezing his sperm when he realized he might die without ever having children.
“It’s not scary to die, but it’s scary when you don’t leave anyone behind,” Khroniuk told the outlet.
Sokurenko said she believed that being able to have Khroniuk’s child even if he died would help her cope with the loss.
“I think it’s a very important opportunity in the future if a woman loses her loved one,” Sokurenko told the outlet. “I understand that it will be difficult to recover from this, but it will give the sense to continue to fight, to continue to live.”
Nataliia Kyrkach-Antonenko, 37, is a widow whose husband, Vitalii, died in battle in November. Kyrkach-Antonenko became pregnant while visiting her husband. During a short vacation leave, Vitalii was able to see an ultrasound of his daughter and also visited a fertility clinic to freeze his sperm just 10 days before his death.
Kyrkach-Antonenko said the opportunity to have another child using her late husband’s sperm “is an incredible support.” She added that she views cryopreservation as a contribution to the war effort.
“Their dads did everything possible to make this future happen. Now it is our turn, as women, to fight for the future of Ukraine as well, raising people with dignity. People who can continue to change the country for the better,” she told the outlet.
The cost of assisted conception with frozen sperm can range from $800 to $3,500 at the IVMED clinic, according to the AP. One woman, Iryna, told the AP she has visited the clinic numerous times trying to conceive while her husband fights near Donetsk, where cities have been reduced to rubble due to fierce Russian artillery fire. (RELATED: Carnage, Chaos And Destruction As Russia Claims Control Of Eastern Ukrainian City)
“Family is what will hold our country, and children are our future. We fight for them,” Iryna said, according to the AP.