Ukrainian Service Women

On the eve of the invasion of Ukraine, there were around 31,000 servicewomen and female MOD employees in the Ukrainian armed forces. This represented around 15% of the total force with one in ten serving as officers (but rarely above major rank). Following Soviet-era practice, servicewomen were mainly restricted to non-combat roles such as medical staff and clerks. The neglect of servicewomen was such that there were no female-standard uniforms on issue, a deficit addressed in typical Ukrainian fashion by volunteers such as the Arm Women Now project that enlisted help to sew uniforms more compatible with the female body shape. How has the war changed this? There are a lot more Ukrainian female soldiers now:

Post the invasion restrictions were eventually lifted with women able to serve in any branch, subject to selection procedures. The age limit for women enlisting was also raised to 60, matching that of men. However, compulsory mobilisation remained only for males. This meant all women enlisting were, and today continue to be, volunteers.

At first, recruitment was slow, mainly due to a lack of organisation and opportunities. Many found employment through ‘private’ recruiting (units posting job applications), rather than centralised recruiting through MOD schemes. By October 2023, female volunteer numbers had jumped 40%. But this only added another 12,000 servicewomen, bringing the total to 43,000 after two years of war.

By March 2024, the numbers had risen to 62,000, including 5,000 in officer posts, and with 10,000 serving in active combat zones. By this point, 14,000 servicewomen in total had qualified as ‘participants in hostilities’ (effectively ‘veteran’ status for which there is a financial benefit). In the summer, the number rose to 67,000, but with clarification, 19,000 were ‘employees with non-military tasks’. By the end of 2024, the number had stabilised around the 68,000 mark where it stands at the time of writing.

The opening of over 40 nationwide recruitment centres – a programme which only started a year ago – has helped boost numbers. Today, roughly one in five applicants at the recruitment centres are women. The roles they fill are tabulated below:

Female applicants at recruitment centres and roles assigned
Staff positions	24%
Combat medics, doctors and nurses	22%
Drone units	13%
Chefs	12%
Snipers (shooting specialists)	6%
Communications and Cyber	6%
Psychologists	3%

Examples of frontline service have been varied. In March 2024, the first all-female drone unit was raised. Tetyana Bondarenko was a theatre actress before the war. Today she is call sign ‘Bond’ (after 007) and an expert drone pilot. Layla, call sign Saratsyn, a former IT worker with striking red dreadlocks, now commands a drone strike unit. Olga Yehorova – a keen sportswoman before the war – is an example of female sniper. She has been wounded twice, once catching shell splinters in her stomach (‘the pain became unbearable’ she remembered), and on a second occasion receiving a bloodied eye from a shell blast. Liudmyla Meniuk joined 24th Aidar Separate Assault Battalion in 2016 and eventually progressed from clerk, to chief sergeant of an assault company, to commander of an armoured service unit. Some have achieved fame: in November 2024 soldier Natalia Hrabarchuk downed a cruise missile with a MANPADs. Before the war she was a kindergarten teacher. This was her first launch.

From left to right, and top to bottom: Sniper Olga Yehorova, theatre actress now drone pilot Tetyana Bondarenko, Commander of Armoured Service Unit Liudmyla Meniuk, and former IT worker today strike drone platoon commander Layla.

Former kindergarten teacher Natalia Hrabarchuk downs a cruise missile with a MANPADs then falls to her knees with the realisation of what she has just achieved. Source: United 24 Media

It is not all about the frontline. Servicewomen also serve in the GUR and SBU (Intelligence Directorate and Security Service) where they have been praised for their skills. ‘[Servicewomen] are the best agents, real Amazons in the field of counterintelligence, who conduct mega-precise agency penetrations, many operations have been successfully implemented thanks to the female agency’s presence,’ so reported acting head of the Security Service of Ukraine, Vasyl Maliuk in 2022.

The risks in capture for Ukrainian Servicewomen have been great. Russian treatment of female prisoners, military or civilian, has been deplorable and in total contempt of the Geneva Conventions. Stories of abuse and torture fill UN and human rights organisation reports. Military medic Olga Shapovalova was captured in Mariupol and had the unfortunate experience of being incarcerated in the three most evil penal colonies: Olenivka, Taganrog and Valuyky. At Olenivka, fifteen women were jammed in a cell with only two benches to sleep. At Taganrog they were stripped and ordered to squat in front of men. Beatings and abuse became routine. At Valuyky, if you did not run to your room in six seconds you were electrocuted. Several hundred Ukrainian women remain in Russian captivity; the number is uncertain as Moscow does not allow access to the Red Cross. Somehow, this does not appear to perturb individuals who argue there should be ‘concessions’ and ‘compromises’ with Moscow.

Do Ukrainian servicewomen have to fight for their place and for respect? Yes, there were and continue to be obstacles (the same journey, incidentally, taken by the ‘Ukrainian LGBT Military for Equal Rights’ group). Social attitudes do not change overnight. Is there equality? Not until more servicewomen achieve higher ranks – commissioned and non-commissioned – and more responsibilities. Yet overall the story is positive and the contribution servicewomen have made to Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s barbaric invasion will achieve a deserved pedestal in the history of women at war.

The last word is best left with medic Oleksandra Mulkevych, who was killed in November last year, one day before her front-line tour was due to end:

Ukrainians are free people, and this cannot be taken from us…It is a country for which it is an honour to die, and even better to live for…

We’ll see each other again.

Ukraine will be forever!

Sergio Miller

Sergio Miller is a retired British Army Intelligence Corps officer. He was a regular contributor and book reviewer forBritish Army Review. He is the author of a two-part history of the Vietnam War (Osprey/Bloomsbury) and is currently drafting a history of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.