Bride Lidiia Makarchuk says WW1 bomb explosion on Ukraine honeymoon killed her brother and injured her

A honeymoon went up in smoke after an unexploded bomb from World War I suddenly exploded, killing two people and seriously injuring the new bride. The bomb, believed to have been planted during the Brusilov offensive in 1916, destroyed the group of 12 in the Ukrainian Carpathians last month. Gathered around a bonfire, the group celebrated a late honeymoon for accountant Lidiia Makarchuk, 31, and Norbert Varga, a radio operator. Although the couple are Ukrainian and Hungarian respectively, they share a home in the UK and had traveled to Central Europe for the occasion.

Varga had briefly left the bonfire to retrieve her camera when he felt the bomb explode. “I ran to the bonfire as fast as I could, shouting Lidiia’s name,” he said. Makarchuk was seriously injured as shrapnel tore her legs, hands and left eye. Makarchuk’s brother, Myroslav, 29, and another man died over the next hour and a half, taking medical personnel to the scene. “My only regret is that I didn’t call him to tell him that I loved him,” Markarchuk told the Daily mail from the hospital, where she is recovering. Her family plans to transfer her to a Hungarian eye clinic for further treatment next month.