In the horror of the war launched by Russia against Ukraine, the efforts of Ukrainian women to contribute to the defense take place not only inside the country, where some take up arms as soldiers and others lead relief initiatives from civil society to the bombed or displaced population and support to the troops.
There is also the foreign front to promote the reasons for the invaded country –congresses, round tables, international awards, interviews in the media–, in which the Ukrainian women have acquired a notable role so far in the war, a role that also has conjunctural reasons. beyond his professional worth.
In practice, the martial law that prohibits men of military age (that is, those between the ages of 18 and 60) from leaving the country has catapulted many women – who can cross the border without hindrance – to act as spokespersons. of the Ukrainian cause abroad.
Saving distances, just as in World War II women in the United States and other allied countries went to work in factories to replace the men sent to the front lines, the role of Ukrainian women in the public sphere is destined to grow and turn. It is a side effect of the war that makes them, in these dramatic circumstances, a unique laboratory on gender equality in Europe.
“Now in Ukraine all of us, men and women, are contributing to the effort from various front lines. The men are inside the country and maintain the military front line and to a large extent also the work line, as they try to earn money for their families, while many women have gone to other countries, where in various ways they contribute to the necessary information front. , says Yulia Siedaia, a sociologist at Kharkiv National University.
But the key role of a majority of Ukrainians is being another. If on the one hand the war has increased the female presence in many sectors, it has also reinforced the distribution of tasks by gender. Housework and childcare are now even more in the hands of women, inside and outside the country, a situation that Ukrainian feminists accept in this context of brutal national emergency. According to UN estimates, 90% of Ukrainians who fled abroad after the Russian invasion that began on February 24, 2022 are women and children.
“There is a job that someone has to do, because it is our future as a country; children must be taken to safe places and ensure that they receive an education, and women in exile are doing this task”, claims Siedaia, who is temporarily in Germany on a project on strengthening democracy.
“But they also carry out other important tasks in the world, such as trying to establish Ukrainian schools or Ukrainian cultural centers, and this also has a positive impact on relations between Ukraine and the host countries,” says the sociologist.
Men and women in Ukraine, military and civilian, go hand in hand in calling on allies to supply their country with arms. “Russia ignores all norms and international law; We cannot allow the blood that is being shed because of him to be in vain,” said the military and legal scholar Alona Verbytska at the Café Kyiv symposium, organized in Berlin last week by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), linked to Christian Democrats. germans.
“The number of soldiers in an army says nothing about its quality, and even more so when not all of them are ready to fight in another country, like the Russians,” says Verbytska, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, and since 2021 commissioner for the rights of Ukrainian soldiers.
According to Zelenski assured last year, the armed forces consist of more than 700,000 soldiers. Although the numbers are difficult to verify, it is estimated that there are more than 50,000 women in the Ukrainian army in all kinds of roles, of whom at least 5,000 are fighting on the front lines. Until 2018, the law did not allow assigning women to combat positions.
“Our soldiers have better training than the Russians and, above all, a lot of motivation, because the Ukrainian army fights for our country, for our people and for our survival; because if we stop fighting, we will also cease to exist,” says Alona Verbytska. The Russian army can be defeated militarily, but we need weapons to do it; it is important that Western countries understand this.” Verbytska speaks in no uncertain terms, to propagate the message that Ukraine wants to convey internationally.
If his official position had been held by a man, he too would have been able to leave Ukraine to attend the symposium, since the Government issues exit permits to men in missions deemed relevant, apart from the fact that there are other exceptions, and also women in charge need authorization to leave the country. But Verbytska’s profile makes her valuable for certain tasks. Thus, on October 1, 2022, Pope Francis received her in audience at the Vatican – she obviously did not come in uniform – to learn first-hand about the situation.
The artistic profile is also a powerful tool. The artist Natalia Delieva, who lives in Odessa, traveled to Paris at the end of February for the inauguration of the immersive digital art piece Ukraine, a year of resilience, a culture of resistance – in which she participates together with other Ukrainian creators, men and women–, and on his return he made a stop in Berlin to speak at a colloquium. This piece aims to promote the Ukrainian struggle internationally and raise funds, like another previous digital work dedicated to the Ukrainian philosopher and poet Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), made before the war and just seen in Toronto.
“Actually, although it may not seem like it, I don’t travel that much around the world, because I have things to do in Ukraine; our organization sends ammunition and other supplies to battalions of soldiers on the front lines”, explains Natalia Delieva. The charitable and cultural NGO Diya, which she founded in 2014 – when the Russian-instigated war in Donbass began – is majority-female, and also helps civilians displaced to Odesa from combat zones. “So I don’t use this opportunity to travel that I have as a woman so much,” continues the artist. But it is good that women are now the ones who explain Ukraine abroad; They’ve been in the shadows for too long.”
Is it uncomfortable to be visible in part because it is now impossible for men to be there?
“There is no discomfort at all; The most important thing now is to speak on behalf of Ukraine under any circumstances, that’s just what we have to do, it’s a responsibility we have,” replies Irina Lapshyna, an economist at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Lapshyna, married to a German and mother of one child, now resides in Osnabrück, western Germany, and will soon rejoin her associate teaching position in Lviv, where she once again has face-to-face classes.
“It is also our responsibility to help as volunteers; I try to do it in my German city with the Ukrainian mothers in the nurseries, acting as an interpreter or with paperwork. And I think that Ukrainian academics also have a responsibility that the society of the host countries listen not only to anecdotal but also to academic evidence; that’s why I investigate”, argues Lapshyna, after the presentation in Berlin in mid-February of a survey of Ukrainian refugees in Germany, carried out by four research institutes on migration.
Irina Lypshina researches in Germany the psychological impact of war on displaced people. Germany, the second country that hosts the most Ukrainian refugees (1,055,323, according to UN figures from February 28) preceded by Poland (1,563,386), is a key player in the international debate on the shipment of weapons to Ukraine by NATO and allies, so the government in Kyiv has every interest in having its arguments resonate in Berlin, and the voices of Ukrainian women are desired.
For the photographer Mila Teshaieva, who, living in Berlin, returned to her native Kyiv in the early days of the war to take photos, it is about “showing a testimony of the Russian attack, which occurred because in Ukraine we have always had this desire to form part of the European project”, and has come and gone ever since. The photos of the first days, gathered under the title Splitter des Lebens. Ein Ukraine-Tagebuch (Fragments of Life. A Ukrainian Diary), have been on display from June 2022 until this February at the Museum of European Cultures in Berlin. Her look at the destruction, death and suffering caused by this war is as radically feminine as it is universal.