They patrol armed checkpoints, fight on blazing front lines, help evacuate civilians to safer areas, and provide needed medical care to wounded soldiers. These are just a few of the things Ukrainian women are doing in defense of their country against Russian military operations in Ukraine.
There are more than 32,000 women registered in the Ukrainian armed forces before the Russian attack, with women making up 16% of the total number of Ukrainian military personnel, and many of them are working on the front lines alongside men, as reported by the Washington Post. In her report a few days ago.
However, women's news makes up only about 23% of the total news related to the war in Ukraine, in which men are politicians, experts and heroes, but although women appear in a small part of this news, their stories and anecdotes are the unforgettable stories and anecdotes Because of the suffering, suffering and heroism it often bears.
Media coverage of women often tends towards traditional narratives that obscure women's capabilities and achievements in the field.
In this context, journalist and media expert Katya Gurchinskaya, who formerly ran the independent Ukrainian news website Hromadske, said, “Talk about women’s news is accidental in the media, and most of the images of women we see are images of victims and refugees, but there are examples Another focus on the leadership capabilities of Ukrainian women, which are absent from coverage," as reported by the "Foreign Policy" platform a few days ago.
This report presents some of the stories and sacrifices of Ukrainian women that were recently circulated by some major newspapers and international websites.
Marina Poroshenko, a Ukrainian cardiologist who was the first lady of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019 the wife of former President Petro Poroshenko helps deliver meals to Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv (European)
Victoria changed by horrors
Crowds of terrified and shocked civilians gasping for breath under a battered bridge and sobbing burning, many walked for miles, some carried elderly people on their backs or in their arms, clutching children, pets and any belongings they could carry with them.
Victoria Kramarenko's job was to help them survive at this point in their perilous journey.
A volunteer paramedic, Victoria has spent the past weeks on the front line in Irbin, the city north of Kyiv where a Russian attack has killed many people, destroyed homes and cut off phone and internet access, and her parents are among those trapped inside.
While carrying out rescue missions, she came under fire, built a rope bridge to transport urgent supplies, and helped severely traumatized civilians.
Every day her ambulance makes dozens of trips between the bridge and the nearby checkpoint, where rescuers rest and regroup.
She was transformed by the horrors of the experience, and of this change she told the Washington Post, "I realize that I am ready to rip the throats of enemies with my teeth...Each one of us will do it to them, let the earth burn under their feet."
The newspaper pointed out that Kramarenko, 55, was a medical assistant before the war in a Kyiv hospital, but when Russia attacked her homeland last month, she launched an intensive training course in "battlefield medicine" for new members of the regional defense forces, many of whom had joined. To fight without any combat experience.
When Russia intensified its attack on the outskirts of Kyiv, its work moved to the broken bridge separating the city from its hometown of Irbin. Ukrainian forces had destroyed the bridge to prevent enemy forces from crossing into Kyiv. Civilians fleeing the disastrous conditions in the city began to flee across the river under the remains of the bridge. The destructive.
Kramarenko helped get many of them safely to the other side, saying simply, "I chose a profession that required serving people in hard times, and it was my duty to help them by saving their lives."
A sign showing Ukrainian refugees at the main railway station (Hauptbahnhof) in Dresden, eastern Germany (French)
Daria Vasilchenko and fight with passion
Another story that the Washington Post mentions in its report is that of Daria Vasylchenko, who was changed forever by the war.
In a neighborhood north of Kyiv, Daria feels well prepared to receive any Russian who might break Ukrainian defenses and try to take the capital.
"We have arranged everything here for a nice welcome," she said, her hands moving up and down the rifle she was holding on her chest.
Daria, 29, first learned shooting when he was a teenager. She said that when she was about the ninth grade, the boys began studying how to use weapons in school, and the girls were taken to medical first aid courses, and Daria rushed to learn all the medical skills quickly, then She joined a boys' class where she learned to "assemble and disassemble a machine gun" and later moved on to learn more advanced weapons including the Dragunov sniper rifle.
Since the start of the war, it has been responsible for maintaining security in a part of the north of the city, which is relatively close to the Russian forces that stopped as they approached the capital.
“Sometimes some of the men who were waiting in line to enlist would ask why a woman works as a soldier,” says Daria. “They say something like, ‘Ma’am, why do you do this when we are here for this?’ I just smile and say that everyone has their own job and that everyone has a job. Something will be fine."
Before the war and in times of peace, Daria worked in public relations in the Kyiv municipality, but now she and her husband, a captain in the army, are deployed with other soldiers in various locations in the capital.
"When there is a chance to go home, my husband and I try to go home together and talk heart to heart... We just talk and talk for hours," she said.
But this week, two Russian missiles hit their apartment building in Kyiv, smashing windows and disrupting any sense of peace they might find at home, and fortunately they weren't home at the time of the strike.
"I know this is just an apartment, we can renovate and restore it after the war, but now we continue to do our work in the army, and anything else is not important now," Daria says.
But she explained that after the war hit her home, it "helps me fight with more passion".
No time to cry
The American writer and journalist Sabrina Tavernez interviewed a number of Ukrainian women who survived the inferno of war, and quoted some of their stories in a report recently published by the New York Times. One of these shocking stories is the story of Vika Kurylenko, 46, a mother of 3 Children, who had fled from the small town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv, which was taken over by the Russians after days of fierce fighting, and we tell you her story as she told the newspaper without our intervention:
"I didn't feel any desire to cry, not a single tear fell from me, and all I felt was the need to get out of there... Every minute you hear the terrifying explosions, and the sounds of shots resounding everywhere, you start to wonder between you and yourself: Are you a target? And even if silence reigns for a moment, the silence makes you feel even worse coming, and there is this constant feeling of danger enveloping everything around you."
"I also had a great sense of guilt because I could not protect my children, my children around me were living in danger and suffering, so I felt like a terrible mother... It's cold and we can't find food and we can't eat anything, so we decided to leave," she says.
"We had to go to Irvine, and there was a kind of transport vehicle designated to help us leave, but we had to cross that park first to get to the bus, and when we entered the park the madness and horror started; the bombing started and the sounds of bullets resounding everywhere, we all fell." On the ground we covered our heads trying to take cover, and all around us there were exploding glass and shards flying, my husband and I put our children under us trying to protect them with our bodies.”
Kurylenko continues, recounting what happened, "After we managed to cross the garden after the bombing stopped for a few minutes, there was a bridge that we had to cross... and we had to walk across this piece of metal, and suddenly the bullets came from both sides again, and a bullet hit a piece of iron nearby. From my hand, I felt the flame of the bullet, and suddenly a soldier came from the other side, fortunately one of us, and he held my daughter Marina in his arms, and we followed him running.. Marina thought it was all just a game, and she laughed when the soldier carried her.”
And she concludes by saying, "Before the war I used to write TV shows, but now I feel like one of those characters I imagined... I didn't want to leave my hometown, and I was happy in my country with all its shortcomings and all its complications, and I don't want to become a refugee somewhere in a country." A foreigner.. I miss my home.. I miss my pictures, our pictures; pictures of my father and my family, and I left behind my notebook, my children’s toys and my girls’ dresses.”