Oksana Abaeva and her husband, Khetag Zaseyev, stand at the grave of her son, Albert Abaev, in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia. Albert, 20, was killed during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Less than a month after the war began, Mr. Zaseyev joined the military, unable to remain idle while his stepson fought on the front lines. On May 17, 2022, soldiers informed Ms. Abaeva of Albert’s death while her husband was stationed nearby. Mr. Zaseyev traveled alone through Ukraine to retrieve Albert’s body from a military morgue in Rostov-on-Don before returning it to Vladikavkaz.

North Ossetia, a remote mountainous region, has long supplied soldiers to Moscow’s wars. The conflict’s toll is visible in schools singing martial songs, a government staffed with veterans, and a growing number of young men lost to war. So many soldiers have died that a dedicated burial plot in Vladikavkaz now holds their remains, with tombstones bearing color photographs baked at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Despite profound grief, many in North Ossetia continue to support the war, influenced by years of propaganda portraying the fight as existential. Ms. Abaeva, who founded an organization for war widows, says she wants peace—but only after what she calls the defeat of Nazism in Ukraine. Four years on, she says their lives have been split into a before and after, marked by loss and an unshakable resolve to see the war through.