Kafa

Hola! Congratulations to everyone on International Women’s Day. I and my comrades had participated in Women’s March and other protest/solidarity events for years before the full-scale invasion. This was our way of struggle and political expression. Today, I and many other activists and anarchists are fighting and volunteering. This is a great honor and great joy to understand that we are taking part in the liberation struggle. Difficult times require commitment and solidarity. And that’s what we do. We need to continue our support for each other as well as remember: if we won’t fight for our rights, no one will. I thank everyone who joins the struggle. I thank everyone who remains faithful to their principles no matter what.

This is what I got for you. Here is an archival photo from the demo in Donetsk. March, 2020.

Ksenia

March 8, how many pleasant memories are associated with this date for me. These are memories not of flowers and gifts, but of political interaction, the struggle for justice and equality, for a better future. A better future… I am afraid that today the feeling of the future, the opportunity to make plans, dream, and set goals is increasingly transforming into a privilege inaccessible to a part of Ukrainian society. Buildings with women, children, and elderly people are falling under the bombs, rockets, and Shahed drones. At the front, for two years now, soldiers are going through moral and physical hell, and they do it every day. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, tens of thousands of dead, and even more ruined lives of families, loved ones, and friends, from whose lives the war took away a loved one, a home, a city, a future.

It feels as if life is being sucked out of you, and to remain strong, effective, work, and engage in activism, you give up life, and, in fact, what remains is a shell, a frame of will and strength, but behind it is emptiness.

All this is very difficult

I do not know what will happen in the future and I will not guess, but I am a witness of the present. I am witnessing events that would seem unreal for the situation we are in, but thanks to mutual aid we continue to save lives. And these are not just words. This is reality. Small or big things change the course of history. It is a pleasure to watch and take part in these things. This is the road that I am happy to walk because you do not walk it alone, but with wonderful people and do the honest and right thing. And it doesn’t matter what awaits at the end.

Let’s be together, let’s be in solidarity and be honest with ourselves.

And the future will be.

Swallow

Hello!

With each year of war, it becomes more and more difficult to speak victorious speeches. There is no end in sight to this dark time, there are still so many challenges to be answered both by society as a whole and by each person, here these challenges have to be accepted by everyone without exception.

I would like to wish us not to lose hope, to find strength for a very long fight, and, of course, it 

would be nice to survive…))

And I wish our foreign brothers and sisters to maintain sobriety and clarity of mind. (I think this would be more than enough to understand everything else and make the right decisions)

Drones, ELINT, shells instead of flowers!

With love and solidarity,
Swallow

Medic

I was one of those people who believed that there was a good chance of resolving what seemed to be a conflict in Donbas diplomatically. In other words, to come to an agreement with Russia. Therefore, when the invasion began, I was not ready at all.

Even those events that preceded February 24, 2022, although they changed the attitude towards the possible options for the development of the war, did not cause the horror and reversal of reality that happened that morning. Then many comrades joined the army, for which I am very grateful. The new reality implied that in addition to helping them through volunteering, sooner or later they would have to be replaced because they would tire, get injured, or die. Because if Russian imperialism has taken the form of an attempt to seize Ukraine, then it will be for a long time. I began to prepare: between work, volunteering, and trying to relax, I learned to drive a car, went to TacMed, to training courses for UAV operators. Subsequently, I began to fill out applications for various brigades. I received a lot of rejections. Women are reluctantly accepted for combat positions, and I did not see the point in going for paperwork positions. I understood that many are being mobilized against their will, so it is better to leave these positions for those who are not ready to go to the combat zone. Ultimately, I received an interesting invitation and made the final decision. And now I admire the landscapes of Donbas.

I know that it is very difficult for women in the army in general, but it largely depends on the number of these women – both in the army in general and in a specific unit. Several other women serve with me and together we solve the everyday problems and the lack of provision of a uniform, and have already managed to protect a colleague from harassment (within the framework of the statute, but we also are ready to go outside it in case of anything). None of my friends participated in feminist activism, but what could be more emancipatory in our time than for a nurse to pull out her still-Soviet red military ID card and come to the TCC? What could be more revolutionary than joining the army to return to your city where you built a house and then the occupiers took it away? For me, the fight against Russia is a fight for women’s rights. Now it is being decided whether the Ukrainian feminist movement will have a chance to exist. It will fight for new and new rights and opportunities for women, if Ukraine is free, or will be erased to ashes by the occupiers. As a left-wing feminist, I’d prefer the first option, which is why I’m in the military.

Of course, I face a lot of questions like “Why do you do this? You should have a baby instead”, I face sexist jokes, with a prejudiced attitude from some commanders. But I knew it would be like that. Personally, I did nothing during the 8 years of the war to improve the situation of women in the army, so I grit my teeth and kick this rock. In principle, it has never been otherwise. Social changes do not happen by themselves. Neither Russia nor the patriarchy will disappear without hard, mundane, and often boring work, which I do.