Themes by tag: women

Oksana and Volodymyr met in 2020 through social media. The couple was together for two years and was planning their future together when their dreams were shattered by the full-scale invasion.

In 2013, Volodymyr participated in the Revolution of Dignity, after which he joined the Ukrainian military as a volunteer. After nearly a year of service, he was captured near Ilovaisk in the Donetsk oblast. He spent nine months in captivity before returning to civilian life following a prisoner exchange. With the start of the full-scale war, he took up arms once again. Volodymyr was killed in action in Bakhmut in July 2022.

After learning of her loved one’s death, Oksana created the “Have To Live” online community for the wives of fallen soldiers. Volodymyr had once given gifts to the children of deceased soldiers on St. Nicholas Day, a tradition that Oksana continued. The women’s community has since grown to six thousand members. Oksana established a charitable foundation and assembled a team of specialists to support those navigating loss and grief. The women work with psychologists, receive legal support, and help develop a new culture of remembrance for the fallen.

Oksana Borkun is available for interviews online and in person in Irpin, Kyiv oblast, by prior arrangement.

• dead
• military
• women
• Kyiv

In February 2022, Olena Kozobrod turned 56. She was a music teacher, but on the first day of the full-scale invasion, she decided to join the army. Olena wanted to support her daughter, who graduated early from a military institute and now serves in the Special Operations Center.

Although she had wanted to, Olena did not end up on the front lines. Instead, she became a clerk in the 93rd Mechanized Brigade Kholodnyi Yar.

Adapting to military life was difficult for her, and Olena often cried during the first year. Over these three years, however, her colleagues’ attitude toward her has changed dramatically, and she is now considered “one of their own”. She occasionally posts videos of herself singing on social media. One day, a follower — who was also a serviceman recently demobilized due to age — contacted her. The two began communicating, and during one of Olena’s leaves, they got married. She will soon turn 60 and therefore plans to leave the army to live with her husband.

Olena Kozobrod is available for interviews online and in person in the Dnipropetrovsk oblast by prior arrangement.

• military
• women
• Dnipro

Yaroslava Shevtsova is from Svatove, in the Luhansk region of Ukraine. She owned a fitness studio there. On March 8, 2022, she and her young son were forced to flee their home when enemy troops captured Svatove. The city is now under russian occupation.

She relocated to France, where she found work, and her son started kindergarten. In October 2022, Yaroslava met Oleksandr Kolomiiets, a Ukrainian soldier who had served since 2015. The couple communicated online and dreamed of meeting in person. They met for the first time on January 2, 2023, and spent a month together. They decided that Yaroslava would return to Ukraine in June to get married.

However, on March 27, 2023, Yaroslava was informed that Oleksandr had been caught in a mortar attack and died in the hospital. Yaroslava decided to return to Vinnytsia, a city that Oleksandr considered the best in Ukraine, and live there. There, she planned to open a café in his memory.

Yaroslava lacked the necessary funds, but she was supported by a friend and Oleksandr’s brothers-in-arms. Thus, the family-friendly café “Simba” was born in Vinnytsia. The café holds charity fundraisers and supports Oleksandr’s fellow soldiers.

Yaroslava Shevtsova is available for interviews online and in person in Vinnytsia by prior arrangement.

• dead
• military
• women
• Vinnytsia

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.

• casualties
• culture
• reconstruction
• women
• Chernihiv

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.

• doctors
• psychological support
• volunteers
• women
• Kyiv

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.

• doctors
• military
• women
• Lviv

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.

• culture
• occupation
• women
• Kherson

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.

• occupation
• prisoners
• russian crimes
• women
• Kharkiv

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.

• occupation
• prisoners
• russian crimes
• volunteers
• women
• Dnipro
• Kherson

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.

• doctors
• volunteers
• women
• Kyiv