What does “кохаю” mean in Ukrainian?

Ukrainian has two verbs for love. Кохати is romantic love, for a partner: я тебе кохаю (“I love you”). Любити is love in general, for parents, friends, a city or borscht: я люблю каву (“I love coffee”). Russian uses one verb, любить, for all of it, so кохаю is one of the words that marks a sentence as clearly Ukrainian.

After Oleksandr Usyk’s win, a reporter asks his wife what she tells him before a fight. Her answer is short: «Що я його кохаю» (“That I love him”). Then she ends the interview with дякую, Ukrainian for “thank you”, another everyday word that sets it apart from Russian спасибо.