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‘If Not Me, Who?’: As Ukraine Seeks Troops, Women Prepare for the Call

With so much in the war against Russia hinging on refilling the ranks of soldiers, efforts are underway to draw more Ukrainian women into the army.
Nov. 8, 2023, 12:01 a.m. ET

Halyna Vynokur, a clerk in a hardware store in Kyiv, was shouldering a firearm for the first time. Iryna Sychova, a purchasing manager at a department store, disassembled and reassembled the jumble of rods and springs in a Kalashnikov rifle.
They were among two dozen women who turned out in a forest near Kyiv one recent weekend for a course in firearms and urban combat, training that included shooting rifles, finding booby traps and throwing hand grenades. They were spurred by a sense of duty, they said, realizing they might some day end up on the front lines.

“Nobody wants to fight in the trenches,” said Olha Bakhmatova, 46, a psychologist who attended the training. “It’s unnatural to want it.” But she felt it was “inevitable” that more women would wind up fighting, and she wanted to be prepared.

“Now, I understand: If not me, who?” she said.

After 20 months of full-scale war, the fighting in Ukraine has bogged down in vicious battles of attrition along a zigzag front line in the southeast. A steady supply of weapons and personnel are crucial, and while Ukraine has the benefit of Western-donated armaments, it relies on only its own population as a pool for replenishing forces — and Russia’s is about three times as large.

With so much hinging on refilling the ranks, efforts are underway to draw more Ukrainian women into the army. Volunteer groups offering all-female training, like the one near Kyiv, are supporting the effort.

About 43,000 women now serve in the Ukrainian military, according to the ministry of defense, an increase of about 40 percent since 2021, the year before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian women are fighting in combat in southeastern Ukraine now. In several steps since the invasion, the military abolished restrictions that kept women from roles such as machine gunner, tank commander and sniper, and lifted rules prohibiting women from driving trucks. It raised the age limit for female recruits, previously 40, to 60, the same as for men.

Earlier in the full-scale war, women had taken combat roles in paramilitary groups or by skirting rules. And they have been wounded, captured and killed, though the military does not release casualty figures for either men or women.

The Ukrainian Army’s outreach to women is a step toward equality, to be sure, but one that also reflects the tremendous toll the war has exacted.
The hundreds of thousands of men who wanted to volunteer at the start of the war, many lining up on Day 1, have already joined; many are dead or wounded. Ukraine now needs to mobilize and train many more soldiers to sustain its resistance to the Russian invasion, even as men are increasingly dodging the draft.

The all-female training sessions are aimed at providing a learning environment where the women would not feel less knowledgeable than men, and where their efforts would not continually be compared with male physical strength.

“Women are able to fight on an equal footing with men and at the same time remain feminine,” said Darya Trebukh, the founder of the nongovernmental group, Ukrainian Valkiriya, that is leading the training sessions. “The gender of a warrior makes no difference.”

In August, the military cut back on deferments for chronic diseases. Now men with asymptomatic tuberculosis, hepatitis and H.I.V. are eligible for the draft. In June, the military tightened exemptions for men caring for disabled relatives or studying at graduate schools, where enrollment has ballooned since the invasion.

To accommodate women, the ministry of defense introduced a female-specific uniform over the summer and this month the Ukrainian Army issued female underwear.

The first indication of a possible draft for women came into effect on Oct. 1, with a law requiring women with medical training to register at recruitment offices. They are not being called up, but are required to undergo medical checkups and receive draft cards.

Out in the forest, the all-female group trained for combat, some having an introductory lesson, others practicing advanced skills. The group makes a few nods to gender: Some of the targets were pink balloons, and a car was parked nearby as a private space for changing into camouflage.

A few hours into the training, a group of half a dozen women, including Ms. Sychova, the purchasing manager, practiced assaulting a building. They walked up stairwells, through corridors, around corners, covering one another, patting one another on the back, and keeping their weapons trained on possible threats. On an upper floor, a man playing an enemy waited.

When the lead group reached him, one woman yelled, “Contact!” The trainees pretended to shoot.
“Girls, that’s it,” Ms. Sychova yelled down a stairwell. “We killed him”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/world/europe/ukraine-war-army-women.html