Long story short, I have a friend from Ukraine who I met during a trip abroad in 2021 and have been in touch with fairly regularly on Viber since. We also hung out in real life once in 2023 when she was living abroad in the EU due to the war but she is back in Ukraine since early 2024.

Last May we were having a discussion on Viber and she stopped responding after one of my replies though I could see the message was sent. I didn't want to pester her so I waited a few weeks, sent a few messages which went through but still no reply. We didn't have a fight or anything, it was a normal conversation. We had disagreements since 2021 like most people do from time to time but it was never anything major.

I waited again and then I wrote her a few messages on Instagram in July and August asking if she lost my phone number and if she is ok without ever getting the 'seen' mention from her account. Meanwhile, and this is probably the strangest thing about all of this, she (or maybe someone else?) has uploaded a few pictures on Instagram since we last texted in May including one as recently as today and the account still posts stories fairly regularly. The most recent picture posted today was fairly ordinary but what struck me is that it was clearly taken during winter or early spring months yet it was uploaded now in September. I even liked a few of her recent pictures hoping to get a message or reaction in my inbox from her but nothing.

This all seems very weird and is making me wonder if my friend might have been killed in the war back in May which would explain why she abruptly stopped replying though I would think if that were the case then surely something would have been posted or mentioned at the very least on her Instagram account by one of her friends/contacts. I was not able to find anything about a possible deadly attack on that day when communication stopped.

Since 2021, we went through phases where we texted less but never like this and it's totally unlike her to just ignore me out of nowhere. If she wanted to stay in touch with me even if she lost my phone number on Viber, she could have contacted me on Instagram instead. I have her phone number (though I hesitate to call because we never spoke on the phone before and I'm not even sure if it's still a valid number), I know where she lives in Ukraine (the city, not the address), I know what kind of job she has BUT I do not have her full name, I do not know any of her friends and family and more importantly I do not speak Ukrainian or Russian. What can I do to positively verify through records whether my friend is still alive or not?