The fighting in Ukraine is now well into its third week, and here in Lviv, many young men are quitting their jobs and signing up to fight for their country. 

Volodia Ozarkiv has completed his basic training and is about to leave for the front. 

He was due to get married in May, but he and his fiance Uliana decided to bring the wedding forward. On Sunday, they took their vows in the St Peter and Paul Cathedral in Lviv. 

The ceremony took place in a side chapel, as hundreds of people started to fill the church for the main Sunday service. 

Kneeling, dressed in traditional Ukrainian attire, red embroidered white shirts, called Vyshyvanka, they held hands as the priest blessed their union in front of a relief of the Virgin Mary. The chapel was full of flowers, many of them yellow and blue, the colors of the Ukrainian flag.  

Afterward, Uliana, now Mrs. Ozarkiv, told me getting this rushed wedding was a symbolic gesture. 

"We planned to get married in May, but the war started, and Volodia goes to the front tomorrow. So, we decided to do it earlier because marriage and family ties make the relationship stronger."

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The St Peter and Paul Cathedral, in the city center, is where services are held for the military. In the past week, there have been funeral services for local soldiers whose bodies were repatriated home. 

This Sunday, it was packed as people came to pray for victory and for those who had fallen fighting the Russians and for the many civilian casualties. 

It was a service made more poignant after Sunday night's attack on the nearby Yavoriv military base, where several dozen people died. 
 

Lviv in western Ukraine is the main transit point for the million and a half refugees leaving the war-torn country.  

Up until now, the city has felt relatively safe, being a long way from the fighting. But on Saturday night, airfields at two towns just a couple of hours drive north and south from here, Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk were hit by missiles and now the Yavoriv military base, a mere 60 kilometers away, is the latest target. 

Lviv's picturesque old town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site once inundated with tourists, hasn't been targeted so far despite the daily blaring of air raid sirens.  

Historic churches are being boarded up and statues wrapped in protective cladding. The museum has also boxed up historical icons and other artifacts and sent them to safety elsewhere. 

Attending the service was Mariya. She could barely hold back the tears as she told me she knew some of those killed at the base.  

"I'm here because I pray for our boys. I pray for our country to withstand and ask God to help us. Look at what happened in Yavoriv. Yesterday, my son's friends, his classmates, went there and today they're already dead.  

"And they had little two months old children who won't even know how their fathers look. I haven't slept the whole night because of anxiety, and I came here in the morning to pray for them," Mariya told me as she left the Cathedral.