Themes by tag: women
In less than two and a half years, Yulia Dudysheva, herself displaced from Crimea, has rebuilt and renovated 11 homes free of charge for families uprooted by war.
Before russia’s full-scale invasion, Dudysheva lived and worked in the Chernihiv region, building a career in advertising while occasionally helping friends with home repairs. But after Ukrainian forces liberated the region in the spring of 2022, she left her job, determined to find a new purpose in the wake of destruction.
By June 2023, she had launched a volunteer initiative called “Cozy Homes for IDPs”, focusing on restoring, repairing, and decorating homes for internally displaced people. Her first projects were for friends who offered their houses for renovation. Soon, her efforts expanded to other families who had lost their homes in the war.
Her most recent project took her to Ternopil, where she renovated a house for a family from Enerhodar, a city still under russian occupation.
Dudysheva also shares her work online, documenting every stage of the repairs and attracting a growing community of followers who help fund materials for her projects. Now back in the Chernihiv region, she continues her mission to bring warmth and stability to those rebuilding their lives after displacement.
Interviews with Yulia Dudysheva can be arranged both online and in person by prior appointment.
Before russia’s full-scale invasion, Maryna Sadykova worked in event management. But after February 24, 2022, her focus shifted entirely — she and her team began volunteering to support Ukrainian troops. The intense pace of that work soon took a toll. Struggling with burnout and anxiety, Sadykova sought peace in the Carpathian Mountains. That personal recovery experience inspired her to launch a mental health initiative for others facing the same strain.
Her organization, the Repower Charity Fund, now runs a psychological support program specifically for military medics and doctors who serve on the front lines. Based in Kyiv, the program offers a 10-day retreat in Sweden designed to help participants restore their emotional resilience and mental well-being.
Since 2022, Repower has organized 17 recovery programs, 16 abroad and one pilot retreat in Ukraine, reaching 1,244 combat medics who have since returned to duty. The foundation continues to expand its retreats and provide ongoing support for those who save lives under fire.
Media representatives and visitors can arrange to meet with Maryna Sadykova, her team, and program participants both online and in person in Kyiv by appointment.
A project by Lviv-based reproductive specialist and four-time Fertility Award winner Liubov Mykhailyshyn, “Preserve Your DNA for the Future,” offers free egg cryopreservation to 20 women in the military who risk their lives every day. The program is open to women between the ages of 21 and 41.
More than 80 women submitted their applications. The program will run until the end of 2025.
Journalists can arrange interviews with Liubov Mykhailyshyn in Lviv or online, and, if possible, with program participants.
Background: The “Preserve Your DNA for the Future” project is funded by a grant from L’Oréal Paris and UNFPA Ukraine (the United Nations Population Fund in Ukraine).
Similar programs have been successfully implemented in the United States (Fertility Preservation Program) and Israel. According to American researchers, service members experience a significant decline in reproductive potential compared to control groups, even without physical injury. Chronic stress is a major contributing factor.
While sperm cryopreservation is a relatively quick and simple process for military personnel, egg freezing is more complex and requires an initial consultation with a reproductive specialist; controlled ovarian stimulation with specific medications; egg retrieval from the ovaries; cryopreservation and long-term storage of the oocytes.
Svitlana Matsiuta is an artist from Kherson. For the past 20 years, she has worked as an assistant set designer in a theater.
She experienced the full-scale invasion in her hometown. During the occupation, Svitlana and her son avoided leaving home out of fear of russian soldiers.
Despite financial hardship, she rejected all offers to work in the theater under russian control. In March 2022, reports began circulating in media and social networks claiming that wild geese had “downed” an enemy military plane. Inspired by this story, Svitlana created her own toy combat geese.
These toys symbolize Kherson’s unbreakable spirit and resistance.
Svitlana says the combat geese are especially popular among Kherson residents who have relocated to other parts of Ukraine or abroad. She has received orders from the U.S., the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy.
In addition to geese, the artist makes roosters inspired by the folk art of Maria Prymachenko and Polina Raiko. Creating these toys helps Svitlana distract herself from the shelling and keeps alive her dream of victory and the liberation of the rest of the Kherson oblast.
Svitlana Matsiuta is available for interviews online or in person in Kherson, by prior arrangement.
For more than three years, history teacher Oksana Struk has been living in anticipation of her husband, Kostiantyn, to come home from russian captivity. The couple, both teachers, have been together for over two decades and lived in the border village of Mala Vovcha in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, just three kilometers from the russian border. When russia launched its full-scale invasion, the village was among the first to fall under occupation.
Oksana and the couple’s son managed to flee to Ukrainian-controlled territory in August 2022. Kostiantyn, a physical educator, stayed behind. Soon after, Oksana learned that russian forces were targeting teachers who refused to cooperate with occupation authorities. One day, they came for her husband – he was arrested, and their home was searched.
According to Oksana, a colleague who was made principal of their school under the occupation denounced her husband to the russians. When Ukrainian forces liberated the village in September 2022, the collaborator fled to russia.
The International Committee of the Red Cross later confirmed that Kostiantyn is being held in russia. In all the time since his abduction, Oksana has received only one letter from him.
Today, she joins peaceful rallies alongside other families whose loved ones remain imprisoned in russia, demanding their release and urging international attention.
Journalists can arrange to speak with Oksana in Kharkiv or online by prior appointment.
Before the full-scale invasion, Nataliia Havrylenko was an entrepreneur in Kherson. She was preparing for war and planned to join the Territorial Defense with her beloved. On February 24, 2022, the couple went straight to the military enlistment office. Soon, the Kherson Territorial Defense fighters, of which Nataliia was a member, received weapons. However, they only managed to serve for two days.
Nataliia recalls how a battalion commander entered the office of the newly formed unit, ordered them to lay down their weapons and flee home through the fields, and then left. In that moment, she and her husband, along with the other civilians, realized that they would have to defend their hometown on their own. Thus began the partisan movement in Kherson. Nataliia and her comrades set up a field hospital and established cooperation with the Special Operations Forces.
On July 7, 2022, russians broke into Nataliia’s home, where she was staying with her daughter-in-law, son, and grandson. She was taken to a temporary detention center, where she was held for several months. Although she was not physically tortured, she was interrogated using a polygraph and forced to give an interview to russian propagandists. Nataliia was released on November 1, 2022, without documents, money, or a phone.
Today, she continues her volunteer work supporting Ukrainian military personnel.
Nataliia Havrylenko is currently in Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. She is available for interviews, both online and in person, by prior arrangement.
Background: Kherson was occupied by russian forces at the beginning of the full-scale invasion (March 1, 2022). The Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the city from russian troops on November 11, 2022. The occupiers continue to shell the city regularly.
Viktoriia Kramarenko worked at a burn center in Kyiv from 2008. When russia first attacked Ukraine in 2014, she began volunteering, traveling to the east to help save and evacuate wounded soldiers from the front lines.
Starting in 2015, Viktoriia officially served as a medic with military units, deploying on rotations to the front lines. In 2018, she founded the Wings of Victory charitable foundation.
Following the start of the full-scale invasion, Viktoriia began teaching tactical medicine to new recruits immediately. Once she acquired an ambulance, she began evacuating the wounded from Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel. Subsequently, she worked near Lysychansk in the Luhansk region, assisting Ukrainian fighters in hospitals.
Through her foundation, Viktoriia launched a rehabilitation and recovery program for military personnel, purchasing sports equipment and setting up a swimming pool. They even bought a horse for hippotherapy. Viktoriia is currently applying for grants to secure financial aid and continue her work with service members.
Viktoriia Kramarenko is available for interviews, both online and in person in Kyiv, by prior arrangement.
Yuliia Matvieieva, 32, lived in Mykolaiv with her husband, building an ordinary life until a russian drone attack changed everything. In July this year, a drone struck their home, sending nearly 300 shards of metal into Yuliia’s face and eyes.
Since then, she has undergone seven surgeries – four of them on her eyes. Her treatment continues, and she remains hopeful that one day she will regain her sight.
Together with her husband, Yuliia runs a blog on social media where she shares her journey of treatment and recovery. Despite the trauma, she says she dreams of seeing her husband’s face again and watching the sun set over the river.
Yuliia Matvieieva is available for conversations both online and in person in Mykolaiv, by prior arrangement.
Vira Biriuk, originally from the village of Bakhmutivka in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, endured a year as her village fell under russian occupation, followed by another year in enemy captivity. When russian forces seized her village at the start of the full-scale invasion, she decided to stay in her home despite the growing danger.
A year later, in the middle of the night, occupation forces broke into her house and took her away. The russians accused her of murder, but Vira believes the real reason was her Ukrainian passport, and the fact that her late brother had served in the Ukrainian military defending the Luhansk region.
Under torture, she says, she was forced to sign a confession. For the first month, she was held in a temporary detention facility, then transferred to a pre-trial detention center in Luhansk, where she spent nearly a year in harsh conditions.
In September 2024, Vira was released as part of a prisoner exchange. After a brief rehabilitation period, she settled at a social center’s temporary housing facility. Today, she works with a charitable foundation in Chernihiv that assists families of prisoners of war.
Vira Biriuk is available for interviews both online and in person in Chernihiv, by prior arrangement.
Olena Yahupova, a resident of the occupied town of Kamianka-Dniprovska in the Zaporizhzhia oblast, endured captivity and forced labor at the hands of russian forces due to her pro-Ukrainian stance. Olena worked in civil service for over 20 years and was known for her Ukrainian patriotic views. She was denounced for allegedly having a husband who served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In October 2022, occupiers seized her from her home.
During her detention, Olena was subjected to torture as the russians sought information on her husband’s whereabouts and details about other individuals with pro-Ukrainian views.
She was also forced into labor slavery, compelled by the occupiers to dig trenches alongside other hostages. Olena performed this grueling work while living in inhumane conditions. She managed to secure her release after more than six months in captivity.
Now that she is safe, Olena has filed a report with law enforcement and undergone forensic medical examinations. She has been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, cerebral microangiopathy, deteriorating eyesight, and injuries to her hip and shoulder joints. She has been assigned a second-degree disability. As a result of the torture Olena endured, she is scheduled to have surgery to replace two cervical discs with implants.
Olena has been officially recognized as a person deprived of personal liberty as a result of Russian aggression, a victim of human trafficking, and a victim of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).
Journalists have the opportunity to speak with Olena in the Kyiv oblast online or in person, by prior arrangement.
