AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The fate of Ukraine could be determined in the coming days. Talks are currently underway on a U.S.-proposed peace plan to end Russia's invasion of the country. But for the nearly million Ukrainian soldiers, there's no respite, not yet. Most of them are men, but women are increasingly playing a visible role. They're enlisting in growing numbers, fighting on the frontlines and sometimes paying the ultimate price.
NPR's Ukraine correspondent Joanna Kakissis has been speaking to several of these women. Her story begins in the Ukrainian capital. And a warning, this report contains the sounds of gunfire.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: The firing range outside Kyiv is where 27-year-old Maryna Mytsiuk spends her free time. She wears fatigues and focuses on hitting her targets. She is joining Ukraine's military, and she's waiting for the call that will send her to war.
MARYNA MYTSIUK: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "Of course, I'd like to be in a combat position," she says. "With my build and height, I'm not a natural fit for that, so I'm training very hard."
At a cafe, Mytsiuk tells me about her life before the war. She studied folklore and Japanese at university. Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 changed her plans.
MYTSIUK: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "I realized then," she says, "that sooner or later, every one of us will end up in the military." So in 2023, she enrolled at Ukraine's National Defense University. She graduated this summer and can now serve as an officer and lead platoons.
MYTSIUK: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She says, "now brigades are offering me positions and asking me, are you ready to live with 40 men and command them?" She smiles because here's the thing. Men between the ages of 25 and 60 can be drafted in Ukraine, but women are exempt. Mytsiuk is choosing to fight, and she is not alone.
OKSANA HRYHORIEVA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: Ukraine's military has a gender adviser, Oksana Hryhorieva, and she says women comprise about 8% of Ukraine's armed forces but that their numbers have increased 40% since 2021.
HRYHORIEVA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She says, until a 2018 law, the military was very patriarchal, and women were not legally allowed to serve in combat positions or study all disciplines at military universities. Today, Hryhorieva says, a fifth of the military cadets are women, and thousands more serve in frontline roles, including infantry, drone operators, medics and engineers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECODING)
JESS: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: Some of Ukraine's top military brigades also feature women in recruiting campaigns. The Khartiia Brigade is part of Ukraine's National Guard and an innovator in robotic warfare. This recruitment video shows a red-haired woman named Jess with a ribbon in her hair, testing land drones.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JESS: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "I am the only woman in this unit," Jess says. "I am 21 years old."
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Ukrainian).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: Yevheniia and Dasha joined Khartiia in 2024. They navigate aerial drones used for reconnaissance. We met them early this year at a hut used for drone repair in Northeastern Ukraine. At the request of Ukraine's military, NPR is identifying some of the soldiers by their first names or military call signs. Yevheniia and Dasha wear puffy coats and sit on rickety stools next to a 3D printer that spits out drone parts.
YEVHENIIA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: Yevheniia is 19, and she looks a lot like Arya Stark from "Game Of Thrones."
YEVHENIIA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She says male soldiers always ask her, what are you doing here?
And what do you say?
YEVHENIIA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She says, "I tell them I have to be here. And that's that."
YEVHENIIA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "And why drones?" she adds. "I don't know. Because I love to play computer games."
DASHA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: Next to her is Dasha, who is 23, tall and stern. She was briefly married and wanted to be a police officer. She says her mother wept when she left for basic training.
DASHA: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: Dasha says, "My mother wanted me to stay at home, be a wife, have children. And I chose what she calls a man's profession, something that will put my life at risk."
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DRIVING)
KAKISSIS: Another drone operator in the unit - her name is Daria - is in a muddy field a short drive away. Daria is in her early 30s and used to be a software developer.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRONE FLYING)
KAKISSIS: As the sun sets, she tests a new aerial drone. She brings up her family.
DARIA: They can say, she need to go to Europe and be in some safe place. And it's very strange in my mind that I speaking now with you.
KAKISSIS: Because most of her relatives, she says, don't even know she is here, that she's a soldier. Meanwhile, she says, male friends have fled the country to avoid the draft. She struggles not to judge them.
DARIA: Like, it's their choice. They can do what they want to do. I can't say, everybody need to do like me.
KAKISSIS: Although, she adds, that's what she really wants to say. About 100 miles north in the city of Sumy, we met combat medic Olena Ivanenko, who was then serving in the 47th Brigade. She uses the call sign Ryzh. She's gone straight from the front line into a beauty salon. A nail master gently chisels at her manicure.
OLENA IVANENKO: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She says, "I know that in three days, my nails will be grimy again, but looking at clean nails for just one day gives me such relief and pleasure."
Ryzh is 44. She's high energy with fuchsia-tinted hair. She worked in the restaurant industry for 20 years before enlisting in 2023, serving first as an infantry soldier.
IVANENKO: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She says, "I decided after three months of service that I would stay in the army forever. I will not return to civilian life. I feel like I am 100,000 million percent in my place." Her service, though, has also brought her heartbreak.
IVANENKO: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She chokes up when she recalls the 2023 battle in Southeastern Ukraine where many in her unit died, including one of her closest friends.
IVANENKO: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "He was the first to get blown up," she says, "and I pulled him out of the dugout. This is probably the hardest thing for me in this whole war so far." Ryzh says she sees the divide between soldiers and civilians growing.
IVANENKO: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "Soldiers say we are working for victory, and civilians say, we want peace," she says, "but peace and victory are different things."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KAKISSIS: Ukraine's military does not release casualty figures, but nearly every day, there is a funeral for a soldier. In September, a large crowd filled Kyiv's main cathedral to mourn one. The family clutched a framed portrait showing a smiling young woman with wire-rimmed glasses. Daria Lopatina, a military engineer - she was 19.
Saluting her coffin was Ruslan Shelar, who works at the Defence Ministry. He says Lopatina was just 8 years old in 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine's east and south.
RUSLAN SHELAR: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: "She grew up with war," he says, "surrounded by people who had taken part in it. Her path was set."
Maryna Mytsiuk, the new recruit we met at the beginning of this report, acknowledges that joining the military is a high-stakes path. She looks around at the lively cafe that's part of her civilian life, and she looks me straight in the eye.
MYTSIUK: (Speaking Ukrainian).
KAKISSIS: She says, "you know, I constantly think about it, about death. But it's better to die on the battlefield than from a missile hitting your apartment in Kyiv. It's better to die fighting than on your knees."
Joanna Kakissis, NPR News, reporting from Kyiv and Northeastern Ukraine. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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