Women in Ukraine are not drafted into military service, but they can volunteer to join, and tens of thousands have done so since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014.
Yulia Sidorova and Katerina Pryimak met at the frontlines when Moscow had already annexed Crimea and was waging war in eastern Ukraine, and decided to join the army.
Sidorova told Euronews that after the Revolution of Dignity, known abroad as the EuroMaidan, she wanted to join the armed forces. “There was a strong feeling that it would all end fast, and I wanted to be part of it,” she said.
Pryimak added that at that time, women were still banned from combat positions. “They were officially enlisted for non-combat jobs, but in reality they were performing combat tasks,” she told Euronews.
“For three years, we gathered as many women, military personnel and veterans as possible to change this. They united for this cause. Activists, politicians and scientists were all involved,” Pryimak explained.
“In Ukraine, civil society is very important. And we build Ukraine with our own hands.”
Pryimak co-founded the Ukrainian Women Veteran Movement, UWVM or Veteranka, the community of women in Ukraine with combat experience.
Veteranka, meaning “female veteran,” supports women in the military, protects the rights of women in the security and defence sector, helps them reintegrate into civilian life, and fosters women’s leadership and active participation in rebuilding Ukraine.
Pryimak, a combat medic and a war veteran herself, says that since Ukraine officially allowed women to hold combat positions in the army through a 2018 law, things have been changing. Women were formally allowed to serve in positions such as gunners, snipers, drivers and scouts.
According to Veteranka, the first 63 combat positions were opened to women back in 2018.
Since then, the movement has been growing, just as the needs of the women at the frontlines. Pryimak said there will be more women in the army in the future, “there is no other choice”.
“The more women there are in the army, the more comfortable and better each of these women will feel. That’s how it works.”
When Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, tens of thousands of women volunteered to join the army and are now a fundamental part of Ukraine’s Armed forces.
‘Cuba and Alaska’
Euronews met with Yulia Sidorova and Katerina Pryimak in Brussels, where they were in town for the screening of a documentary, “Cuba and Alaska”. The film follows two women, Yulia Sidorova, call sign “Cuba,” and Oleksandra Lysytska, call sign “Alaska”.
Lysytska, a lieutenant, serves as an officer of the Special Purpose Group in the National Guard of Ukraine. She joined the army following the all-out invasion.
Women have always been allowed to leave Ukraine to evacuate from the war. When asked why she decided not just to stay, but also to join the defence — even if she did not have prior experience like Sidorova did from 2014 — Lysytska said, “I just want to live in my country, in my city, in my flat. And to do that, I need to do something.”
Cuba and Alaska, filmed mainly with bodycams and smartphones, tells the story of two friends at the front lines as they navigate the horrors of war and their dreams for “when the war is over”.
Covered in blood while saving the lives of the soldiers at the frontlines, Cuba dreams of her own fashion show in Paris.
She did show her designs in the French capital and admitted “this was her childhood dream”.
“I just wish it was under different circumstances,” she confessed.
From the fashion show she returned to Ukraine and to saving lives at the front lines, explaining that she feels safer amid the fighting than she does away from it.
Lysytska, aka Alaska, echoed the statement. “It is scarier to be in Kyiv than to be at the battlefield,” she said, referring to her forced break for rehabilitation when she got injured at the frontline and had to spend a few months in Kyiv.
The war has weirdly become more familiar and even more comfortable for Ukrainian paramedics and soldiers than the civilian life they once had.
In the film, Alaska is nervously preparing for her English exam, saying the test feels scarier to her than the war.
Lysytska passed the exam, but still has not gotten used to civilian life.
She told Euronews that perception completely changes on the battlefront. “When you are on the front line, you are with your team, who know exactly what to do. People have certain skills. They know what to do and how to help. This is not the case in civilian life,” Lysytska said.
Sidorova added that in civilian life there is no precise “flowchart” of what to do. “I arrive in Kyiv, enter the flat, and suddenly there is a Shahed drone attack, everything starts buzzing, my mobile connection disappears. And I don’t understand what to do next, where to run and how to save myself,” she pointed out.
Pryimak explained that it is indeed challenging for a person who is constantly under stress on the front line to change their mind, change their environment, and move to Kyiv, where everything is a “grey area” between the war and civilian life.
“One side is completely at war, while the other is completely removed from it, because there is no danger, no sense of constant danger,” Pryimak said.
Europe, they say, inhabits the same space.
‘Europe now is like Ukraine in 2014’
Sidorova says her visit to Brussels and the situation in Europe remind her of the situation in Ukraine in 2014, when the war just started.
“It reminds me of 2014 when the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO, Ukraine’s response to Russia’s war in the Donbas) was happening and part of Ukraine’s population, or rather most of it, wasn’t involved in the war at all and wasn’t interested in it and didn’t understand what was really going on,” Sidorova explained.
She said what scared her was that the “people weren’t ready for what was coming”.
“In Europe, in my opinion, it’s the same now. People don’t even understand what is happening around them and how close it really is. For them, it’s as if it’s happening on another planet. And that’s why I get the feeling that Europe is not ready for the future either,” Sidorova pointed out.
Pryimak told Euronews the “illusion of security is very frightening”.
“I remember how I came to Mariupol in 2019. And now, looking back, you realise how frightening the illusion of security is when you see that a few years later the city has been completely destroyed and occupied,” she recalled.
“We, as Ukraine, can only hope that we will survive. All these countries are living as if nothing has happened, even though war is looming over everyone. We have this feeling that the war will be terrible, massive and global.”
According to Sidorova, Russia’s plans and war ambitions are evident and clear from the frontlines in Ukraine. “I am sure that if Russia is not stopped, it will go further. There are no other options. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will have no reason to stop.”
If Ukraine falls, “why wouldn’t (Putin) go further,” she said, “if the whole country is being working for the war.”
Pryimak added that Russia will be able to mobilise even more resources against Europe and will not spare its troops.
“They send their people like robots, their infantry are just sent to go and they go. And in the same way, if they capture Ukraine, they will send those who remain here. Therefore, Ukraine must stand firm,” she said.
Lysytska pointed out that Europe still has time to prepare, although it is “very alarming that people do not understand the scale of evil”.
“It is better to nip the disease in the bud, before it has spread completely. Right now, it is localised in Ukraine and has not yet reached you,” Lysytska said.
But you understand that a blood infection is about to begin. You have to fight it. It is about self-preservation instincts. Why is this not enough for Europe?”
