Editor’s word: This text originated as a successful story concept in a vote by members of the Kyiv Unbiased’s neighborhood. Join our community at this time and be a part of our unique members-only Discord channel, the place you possibly can talk about and recommend tales, ask our journalists questions, and extra.
"Her power is her thoughts. Her alternative is Khartiia." That was the message — written in smooth neon inexperienced script — shared throughout all social media accounts of Ukraine’s thirteenth Nationwide Guard Khartiia Brigade this Could.
The brief tagline headed Ukraine's first-ever navy recruiting marketing campaign focusing on ladies, launched by the brigade to draw them to tech roles within the military.
Round 70,000 ladies are serving in Ukraine's practically million-strong navy as of 2025, in accordance with the Protection Ministry. However navy service largely stays an unwelcoming setting for feminine troopers, who face Soviet-rooted prejudice, limitations on schooling, profession progress, and entry to fight positions.
Some progressive items like Khartiia are working to alter the state of affairs, specifically by updating inside practices to higher combine ladies into items. With the brand new marketing campaign, Khartiia says its hope is to point out ladies they’re welcome and may thrive in several positions.
As Ukraine continues to face vital shortages in manpower to combat Russia, the navy wants all the assistance it could possibly get in attracting new recruits.
Motivated and expert recruits
After practically 3.5 years of full-scale battle, Ukraine's navy more and more depends on mobilized, moderately than volunteer, recruits, resulting in items usually receiving much less motivated troopers.
Since Ukraine doesn’t conscript ladies, feminine volunteers signify a extremely motivated but severely under-utilized class within the military, in accordance with troopers and activists.
"Motivated ladies are higher at any job than unmotivated males," stated Alina Andreieva, a drone operator in a Khartiia’s reconnaissance unit and the important thing driver of the marketing campaign.
Andreieva advised the Kyiv Unbiased that she was “obsessed” with the thought of recruiting ladies since she joined the military a few yr and a half in the past whereas working as a photographer.
When in 2025, Khartiia collaborated with two non-profits, Dignitas Fund and the Dutch group "Shield Ukraine," to create the marketing campaign, Andreieva and different feminine troopers from Khartiia had been carefully concerned in its improvement.
One other feminine soldier in Khartia, a 21 yr previous nurse by coaching who requested to be recognized solely by her callsign "Jess," rapidly grew to become a pioneering operator of floor robotic programs inside months of becoming a member of the brigade.
"I rapidly realized staple items like soldering and assembling communication kits for our drones and discovered how the drones labored (and was then capable of) suggest new concepts — totally different flight controllers and what we might hook up with them to make it informative," she advised the Kyiv Unbiased in a video interview.
The tech jobs that Khartiia invitations ladies to fill embrace drone and floor robotic programs operators, digital warfare and intelligence specialists, and ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Goal Acquisition, and Reconnaissance) dispatchers, concerned in a NATO method in the direction of planning fight operations.
“We actually want ladies in STEM,” stated Sofiia Pryduvalova, 30, who does public relations for Khartiia and who co-developed the marketing campaign. “There are numerous of them (in Ukraine), they usually might make the brigade a lot stronger.”
Progressive tradition
Khartiia, well-known for its incorporation of know-how and NATO requirements into its workflow, grew to become a flagship of the navy corp reform along with the twelfth Particular Forces Azov Brigade in 2025.
Since its formation in 2022, Khartia has stood out in Ukraine's post-Soviet navy, with its progressive administration model cultivating a extra welcoming environment for girls.
Pryduvalova shared her and her mates' disheartening recruitment experiences, saying that a few of them deserted their plans to hitch sure items consequently.
"There are brigades that consciously discourage ladies from becoming a member of them, explicitly saying so," Pryduvalova stated.
"The time is ripe for girls who wish to take issues into their very own arms."
All the ladies from Khartiia interviewed for this story stated they really feel protected within the brigade, citing its top-down efforts to modernize and deal with each soldier pretty, no matter gender. Ladies of the brigade say additionally they incessantly collaborate to advocate for additional modifications.
"I noticed that an unbiased perspective in the direction of ladies was fostered in recruits even throughout coaching," "Jess" stated about one in every of her coaching programs with the brigade.
"Khartiia was the one brigade on the time (after I was enlisting in 2023) that thought-about ladies for a fight position," Andreieva stated. As of 2025, round 5,500 ladies are serving within the Ukrainian military in front-line fight roles, in comparison with below 5,000 in 2023, in accordance with official knowledge.
"The commanders all the time handled ladies equally. The precedence was not gender, however the way you dealt with the job," Andreieva added.
Marketing campaign outcomes
The outcomes of the marketing campaign, launched in Could, are unlikely to point out any outcomes till this fall, in accordance with Khartiia’s press officer, Volodymyr Dehtiarov.
Accounting for the preliminary interviews, medical fee, and no less than two fundamental coaching programs offered by the Nationwide Guard and moreover by Khartiia, it could possibly take no less than three months for a non-specialized recruit to hitch their unit’s every day duties.
"The outcomes thus far should not in amount, however high quality," Dehtiarov advised the Kyiv Unbiased. Earlier than, ladies who utilized hardly ever listed particular positions they had been concerned about, whereas now, extra apply for “communications” or “UAV," because of the marketing campaign movies the place ladies of Khartiia speak about their respective jobs, he stated.
Dehtiarov defined that Dignitas Fund, the non-profit sponsoring the marketing campaign, additionally discovered donors to cowl the coaching for dozens of feminine recruits.
"However we have to fill a whole bunch of positions (within the Khartiia Brigade), and 1000’s within the corps (led by the Khartiia brigade commander)," he added, referencing each female and male recruits.
The way forward for ladies in Ukraine's military
As feminine troopers grow to be extra seen within the media, some persons are involved that it’s a step in the direction of obligatory mobilization for girls, stated Kateryna Pryimak, a pacesetter of the Ukrainian NGO Veteranka Motion which advocates for girls within the military.
"It's unfaithful — our nation is hardly able to mobilize ladies forcibly," Pryimak added.
And Khartiia’s officers count on the proportion of ladies within the military to develop even with out feminine conscription.
"There will likely be numerous women within the UAV (unmanned aerial autos) section as a result of (moderately than bodily power,) it favors mind, instinct, and tech abilities," stated Ihor Raikov, a UAV platoon commander in Khartiia’s anti-tank guided missile firm, including that he expects the variety of feminine volunteers to extend.
Future feminine instructors, extremely skilled with fashionable warfare, may also revolutionize navy universities, the place ladies face obstacles in navy schooling that immediately impacts profession development, in accordance with Pryimak.
"The time is ripe for girls who wish to take issues into their very own arms," Andreieva advised the Kyiv Unbiased in a written remark she despatched from her front-line place in Kharkiv Oblast.
"Their husbands are both at battle or lifeless; their properties have been destroyed, their family members killed or captured; they’ve seen an excessive amount of to sit down again idly," Andreieva stated.
Be aware from the creator:
Whats up, that is Natalia Yermak. I wrote this story for you, which was chosen by our members by voting on Discord. All of the Kyiv Unbiased members are welcome to hitch our Discord neighborhood and assist select between a number of choices for the story from Ukraine that you’re most concerned about.
Should you’d wish to vote on what we must always cowl sooner or later and help our work, please take into account turning into our member.
The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy