Ukrainian women fight for the future of their country
Ukrainian soldier Anastasia Mokhina, third from left, and co-founders Kseniia Drahaniuk, third from right, and her husband Andrii Kolesnyk, center, of non-profit group Zemliachky stand in a supply room in Kiev, Ukraine December 6, 2022. The group helps with the Equipment worn by female soldiers who have joined Ukra
Ukraine’s women play a crucial role in protecting their country and shaping its future.
More than 60,000 Ukrainian women serve in the Ukrainian military to defend against Russian aggression. Tens of thousands more are doing their part to help their country as journalists, paramedics, teachers, politicians and artists.
“Throughout history, women have played a crucial role in Ukraine’s struggle for freedom and sovereignty,” said Katrina Fotovat, acting special envoy of the Secretariat for Global Women’s Issues at the US State Department. That still applies today.
“Women are … heroes of this war,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, said during a State Department virtual panel session on the role of Ukrainian women in countering Russian aggression against Ukraine and their collective future.
Women lead communities
When many international organizations fled Ukraine at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, many women leaders stayed, Markarova said.
“They risked their lives to help other women with food. They risked their lives to help our brave forces. They risked their lives to actually try to achieve some kind of normality in this terrible war,” she said.
She highlighted the extraordinary work of Oleksandra Matviichuk, who heads the Center for Civil Liberties and received the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to document possible war crimes and human rights abuses.
Foreign Minister Antony Blinken said on February 18 that members of the Russian Armed Forces and other Russian officials had committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine based on a careful analysis of the law and available facts. He said the determination underscores the “appalling scale of human suffering inflicted on Ukrainian civilians by Moscow.”
In March 2022, Blinken announced that the US government had assessed that members of the Russian armed forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine.
Journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk said that women journalists reported stories of mistreatment by Russian forces in Kherson, Kharkiv, Severodonetsk and other cities across Ukraine. She said the journalists, who are affiliated with the Public Interest Journalism Lab she founded, speak to witnesses of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“It’s extremely difficult work,” Gumenyuk said during the panel discussion, but it was “done for the future, done for justice.”
In towns and villages, many men are on the front lines, leaving women to run hospitals, schools, and even the villages themselves, often without water, electricity, or other supplies. “Often it is only thanks to them [the women]the community survived,” Gumenyuk said.
Women also lead at the forefront. Of the 60,000 women in the Ukrainian army, 5,000 serve in combat units, work as medics and snipers, said Yevheniia Kravchuk, a member of Ukraine’s parliament.
Think of the next generation
Kravchuk noted that a generation of children in Ukraine “knows nothing but Russian aggression.”
That includes Kravchuk’s daughter, who turned 9 this year. She was born around the time of the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, in early 2014. And just a few weeks after her birth, Russian troops invaded Crimea, and then began to occupy it. And then the proxies of Russia moved to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. “We cannot leave this war to our children.”
Ruslana Lyzhychko, winner of the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest and recipient of the US State Department’s 2014 International Women of Courage Award, is an outspoken critic of the war. On social media, she urges her fans and celebrities to take action and work for peace. “It’s not just about Ukraine, it’s not just about Europe,” she said. “It’s about our humanity.”
Watch these women’s full speeches at the panel session. Also, learn about other women defending Ukraine featured in a ShareAmerica series, including Yana Zinkevych and Nataliya Mykolska and Valentina Synenka.
