Nicolas Tonev (special correspondent in kyiv), edited by Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: Myriam Renaud / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 06:12, February 22, 2024

While Ukraine is in its third year of war against Russia, the country has discovered in recent months, through timid demonstrations by women, that very often, it is the same men who have been at the front since the start of the conflict.

Europe 1 met one of them who is demanding the demobilization of her husband.

A few hundred women parade in the streets of kyiv on February 7.

Anastasia, 37, leads the procession: she demands the return of her husband Vitali, fifty years old, a logistician in the trenches and exhausted after two years at the front in the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“I notice all these moments where I have to support him morally, talk to him in such a way that he does not let himself go,” she explains to the special correspondent of Europe 1, believing that “for those who like him, have been there for two years, only demobilization will save them.”

The same men at the front since the start of the conflict

Shy demonstrations by women in the capital and in Ukraine's largest cities are being held, almost two years after the start of the war.

Residents have thus discovered, in recent months, that it is often the same men who are sent to the front, those who signed up from the start of the conflict.

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While a law planning to “expand conscription” is under discussion in the Ukrainian Parliament, these women believe that their men have already fulfilled their duty.

Like Anastasia, they demand their demobilization and their replacement by others, those who avoid war, to defend the country.

This is a sort of squaring of the circle of the Ukrainian army: the front lines cannot remain without defenders.

“It’s been two years without my father, it’s very hard,” confides a young boy

Anastasia and the other women therefore put pressure on the government so that the law on expanded conscription finally passes.

"Mobilization must go hand in hand with demobilization. But damn, it's not up to us to say how to implement this law correctly! A real mobilization so that people go to fight... The guys must know when they are going to come back", says this companion of a soldier still mobilized on the front.

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Today, these women feel unwelcome in a divided society.

“We are a threat to those who have not yet served,” she confides, “but they will end up at the front. The dead, the wounded, we must replace them.”

After these words, Ivan, his son, looks up from his console and confides: "It's been two years without my father, it's very hard. I'm waiting, I'm 6 years old."