{"id":32043,"date":"2026-08-23T12:09:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T12:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/32043\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T12:09:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T12:09:29","slug":"ukraines-fight-against-putin-shows-what-women-are-really-capable-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/32043\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s fight against Putin shows what women are really capable of"},"content":{"rendered":"

You have to love the sight of Terekh, a stunning brunette with high cheekbones, luscious glossy lips and chic, understated garb, speaking to reporters against a backdrop depicting the launch of the pink Flamingo cruise missile she developed with Fire Point.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s all the more impressive is how determined Ukraine\u2019s warrior women have had to be to get here, given the entrenched sexism they face. Despite women\u2019s crucial contribution, Ukrainian command positions still remain almost exclusively male.<\/p>\n

Of 23 parliamentary committees in Ukraine, women chair just three. The defence and security committee has no women in its leadership. At this year\u2019s influential Bilderberg Conference in Washington DC, Terekh was the only woman present from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

I was deeply struck by a recent set of interviews with Ukrainian women who enlisted after Russia\u2019s invasion. Alya, 35, a former dancer, became a surgeon in the army. The bravery she exhibited treating young men blown to bits by shrapnel was in stark contrast to the attitudes of male soldiers she encountered when she first signed up.<\/p>\n

She told The Times<\/a>: \u201c[The men] say: \u2018Oh, she\u2019s a beautiful doll \u2014 she can\u2019t be smart enough.\u2019 Or else it might be: \u2018Oh, she\u2019s come to search for a husband here.\u2019 To which my response was: \u2018Listen, I was a ballet dancer, I was spoilt for choice. I didn\u2019t have to join the army to find a husband.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Katya, 31, now a drone operator, was an astrophysics student before volunteering in 2015 after Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of fighting in the Donbas. She grew up loving JRR Tolkien\u2019s<\/a> works, and especially the warrior Aragorn in the The Lord of the Rings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a strong sense of justice, and my favourite heroes were always fighting dark forces,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt I too should go to war.\u201d She too faced overwhelming harassment in her brigade, which left her afraid for her safety. As she put it, instead of fighting Russia, she was forced into her own little war with rank misogyny. Now she\u2019s in a small unit with her boyfriend, firing drones on Russian targets.<\/p>\n

Notably, Katya finds Israel\u2019s conscription of both sexes inspiring. \u201cI would like to see the same in Ukraine, because everyone needs to be protected. I think there should be mobilisation of women, like there is with men. Everyone needs the same kind of training, women included,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The feminist transformation of Ukraine has some way to go. But through real acts of bravery, commitment and hard graft, women are proving their mettle and winning the kind of trust they ought not to have to win, but which is nonetheless necessary.<\/p>\n

The results are already revolutionising Ukrainian society and military prowess. Now the rest of the world has to catch up, before the enemy is at our gates too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You have to love the sight of Terekh, a stunning brunette with high cheekbones, luscious glossy lips and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[906,82,375,6,26],"class_list":["post-32043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-comment","tag-news","tag-opinion","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}