Kyiv campaign for 8 March highlights stories of women in the armed forces – photos

Advertisements featuring the stories of four female service personnel with combat experience will be displayed in Kyiv ahead of International Women's Rights Day. Their stories will appear on the metro, on street advertising boards and in the capital's shopping centres.

Source: Veteranka, a Ukrainian women veterans movement, in an interview with UP. Zhyttia (Life)

Details: The Veteranka movement has launched the "Women can do anything!" campaign, creating comic-style ads depicting women as modern-day superheroines.

Quote: "We're used to fictional superheroes in comics and games, but the real heroines are right next to us – flying drones, commanding units, protecting the skies and defending the land.

This campaign reminds us that women taking on roles in the military is not an exception, but the new multifaceted normal."

More details: The four women featured in the ads are:

Yeva, alias "Yunga" (Sailor), an FPV drone operator with the Rubizh Brigade. Yeva joined the armed forces at 18 after leaving school and destroyed 250 Russian assets in her first 18 months of service. "Her superpower is seeing in the dark and hitting a target that threatens our cities," Veteranka says.

Oksana ("Oksi"), the first commander of a combat group operating a ground robotic complex with the Omega special unit. As a civilian, Oksana was a successful businesswoman. When Russia's full-scale invasion started, she wrote a will, sent her two children abroad, and joined Ukraine's defence forces.

Ania Tatu ("Ksena"), a Pole with Belgian citizenship who serves as a UAV operator in the 37th Separate Marine Brigade. "Despite living with a prosthesis, she chose the front line and won the right to serve in the marines. Her superpower is her remarkable precision and her ability to spot a threat first in the night sky, saving thousands of lives," says Veteranka.

Yana, alias "Multyk" (Cartoon), the commander of a women's UAV platoon in the 141st Separate Mechanised Brigade whom Veteranka calls "a symbol of resilience and sisterhood". Yana survived the Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast and sustained multiple injuries in combat. She then went on to lead the first all-female unit of UAV operators. In her role she is "burning away prejudice and building a new army where every woman is protected and heard", Veteranka says.

The initiative aims to reshape public perceptions of the role of women in Ukraine's defence forces and to emphasise the contribution they make to protecting civilians.

Veteranka said the campaign is also expected to help a major charity fundraiser reach its target of UAH 6 million (around US$137,000). The money will be used to support mobile air defence groups in the 37th Separate Marine Brigade and to purchase Heavy Shot bomber drones for the National Guard's Rubizh Brigade.

Background:

• Ukraine's Defence Ministry said that as of February 2025, the share of women joining the defence forces has risen to 21%. Recruitment centres in Chernivtsi Oblast recorded the highest number of applications from women.
• In 2025, there were over 70,000 women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with more than 5,500 serving on the front line.
• Oksana Hryhorieva, gender adviser to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said the number of female officers in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past two years. At the beginning of 2023 only 4% of officers were women, but now the figure stands at 21%.

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