In pictures.. an American report on the prominent role of Ukrainian women on the front lines of the war

Women have emerged effectively on the front lines of Moscow's brutal war on Ukraine, even though the vast majority of fighters are male.

In its report on the role of Ukrainian women in the current war, the Washington Post says that when men are injured on the battlefield, a woman often jumps to rescue a wounded soldier.

Women now make up about 22 percent of the Ukrainian military, a rise that began with the Russian-backed war in the east beginning in 2014, but has risen since the all-out Russian invasion four months ago, according to Katerina Primak, co-founder of the Veteran Women's Movement.

"Since February, more and more women are joining the workforce," Primack said.

The doctor, Hanna Khorafa, sees a huge jump in the number of women working in front-line units.

She said women often worked in supportive roles such as cooking in the unit's kitchens, adding, "Now I see female drivers, mechanics, paramedics, machine gun holders and chauffeurs."

A few weeks before Russian tanks crossed the border in February, Khurava married a Ukrainian soldier driving an ambulance.

“Nice place for a honeymoon, isn't it?” she asked, looking around at the sandbags in front of the hospital in Kramatorsk where many of the injured are taken.

Her new husband tried to dissuade her from joining the front line, but she said, "If you're going to get on the first bus, I'll be on the second."

Women who travel to the most dangerous parts of the war say they often encounter resistance from male partners, fathers, and older soldiers who see their wives, sisters and daughters in the faces of young doctors.

"Right now, I'm basically lying to my parents," said Liana Negoyan, a 24-year-old doctor who works in Bakhmut. "They think I have a good job opportunity in Kyiv."

Negoyan was a clinic nurse in Dnipro when the war began, but registered in the army's medical sector after the invasion.

But four months later, she still fears that her father, who has a heart condition, is too upset to learn that she has traded her previous quiet job for a more serious one.

Irina Bokas, who served 13 years in the Army's medical sector, said she's honed a combination of maternity care and combat credibility to be a more effective physician to soldiers who are often younger than her older sons.

Its artillery unit was subjected to heavy bombardment by Russia a few weeks ago.

After treating the wounded - and securing the dead - she was asked to help a group of soldiers who were so frightened they refused to take off their jackets and helmets even after they had been evacuated to safety.

“I tried to comfort them as a mother and as a soldier,” Bocas, 48, said. “It helped me that I am a woman, and I can tell them that I was bombed too many times.”

Alina Mikhailova was sleeping on the floor of an empty warehouse, the only woman among dozens of male soldiers, to get some rest after days of constant fighting.

And Mikhailova woke up to the sound of an explosion so often on the front lines of war that the sound did not bother the soldiers.

"A Russian missile hit the unit," said Mikhailova, an Army Attack Company medic, who was dressed when she received the call.

Mikhailova rushed to the site and found a soldier with deep wounds to the stomach, who was taken by car to the hospital, an hour away from the site.

"Every time we hit a bump (on the road), he was in pain," she said. "I realized there must be shrapnel moving through his body and cutting his organs."

Weeks later, she remembered that the patient's blood pressure was very low, so she improvised the treatment and put gauze in the wounds to prevent the sharp metal from turning dangerously and cutting vital organs.

Her wartime transformation has never been more impressive than from Kyiv's botanical political science major to frontline combat medic.

"I was just a girl who liked snowboarding. But I decided this is where I should be," she said, sitting in the ambulance waiting for the next call as the number of casualties rose amid Russian attacks on the Eastern Front.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news