Lukáš Dobeš, Polina Davydenko
A report from the Kharkov direction of the front and an interview with medic Kuba describe how the position of women in the army changed during the ten-year war. In the direction of Bachmut, the drone operators from the Black Raven company admit to fatigue, but also to unceasing motivation.
We are waiting in Kharkiv in the parking lot near the Saltivka housing estate. Before long, a truck arrives, from which a woman in camouflage gets out. He has black, tightly pulled hair and is holding a smartphone in his hand, into which he is constantly talking. Once he hangs up, he introduces himself as Cuba. Her colleague Karabin hands us a chilled bottle of water. It's one of the hottest days of the summer and we're sitting next to a bombed-out little cabin that burned down only two days ago. A local stray dog still lies in front of the entrance. He was probably used to waiting outside the store for scraps from saleswomen or generous passers-by.
Kuba is a former dancer and designer. As a medic, she has been on the front since the outbreak of the war in Donbass. Service after 2014 and before full-fledged invasions is often distinguished by the transfer between volunteer battalions and service in the regular armed forces. The same transfer also met Cuba. After experience in the Hospitaliers and DaVinci's Wolves volunteer brigades, she co-founded the Ulf health service. "When I felt that I no longer had much to do in Donbass, I decided to return to civilian life from Ulf. There were enough medics for the length of the queue at that time. I think I'm more of a creative person, I wasn't born with the prerequisites to fight for it. So now some like to say that some people are born that way and others are not.'
During a three-year break from the fighting, she devoted herself to the fashion brand Cubitus Dei, and thanks to her own experience of returning from the front to ordinary society, she also helped develop the Ukrainian Women's Veteran Movement and its Veteranka sewing workshop. Since the beginning of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO), as Ukraine officially calls the first phase of the war in eastern Ukraine since 2014, the movement has been involved in promoting various women's issues in the military. One of his great achievements is the very granting of combat roles to women. "Before, even if a woman was a sniper completely on the line of contact, she had an officially registered position as a seamstress or a cook." This inevitably led to complexities, both from the side of bureaucracy and in the matter of granting the status of female veterans.
Where government supplies fall short, invention comes from resources collected from volunteers. Fundraising in a crisis brought a parallel competition for attention.
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, they formed a rapid response and supply staff with members of the women's veteran movement in Kyiv. However, Cuba did not remain in the volunteer movement for long after the invasion began. She didn't feel like there were many other options in her decision about whether to return to the front. "It was clear to me that I had no choice. I had valuable experience, acquired habits and a general understanding of what is needed in a full-fledged war. When the length of the queue increased so drastically, it was clear that professional medics in the ranks of the army could not be enough. More people will be needed, after all, as in all positions in the military. There was a huge need to teach even the very basics, such as how to handle a tactical choke, how to give first aid to yourself or your comrade. In general, I consider people the most valuable thing. Even if we receive weapons, we must always have someone who can use them," describes Kuba.
"When I returned and transferred to the armed forces of the 92nd Brigade, I was given the position of gunner. To this day, I have no idea what such a cannon looks like. Officially, I now have the position of paramedic at the health center," Kuba laughs, because the position of paramedic does not really correspond to her daily reality. Although Cuba has extensive experience in treating the seriously wounded, she cannot officially be the commander of the medical service due to her lack of medical training. Even so, he effectively commands the evacuation of the entire battalion, thanks to his knowledge and the new methods he comes up with. "I don't really care how I'm [officially] led, I just want to be useful."
Evacuation of the wounded from the battlefield
When Kuba describes what her typical day looks like, she mentions, in addition to training on the training grounds, the coordination of the transport of the wounded and now also often remote consultations. Experienced procedures of evacuation according to the Western model cannot stand in a situation complicated by the number of drone attacks. For comparison, Cuba remembers the days of the ATO [an acronym for the anti-terrorist operation that began with the occupation of Crimea and later the invasion of the Donbass by Russian troops in 2014], when they literally slept in Canada as an evacuation unit so that they could leave for the wounded without delay. The current evacuation process is incomparably longer than before. Today, unfortunately, it is common for the seriously injured to wait days or even weeks on the line of communication due to the lack of staff and the dangerous situation.
Even in medical practice, according to Cuba, elements of mutual assistance and horizontality appear in the command of an army made up largely of voluntarily mobilized "ordinary people". From the experience brought by the defense of Bakhmut a year ago, her unit therefore came up with procedures for remotely helping even those in the places of the hottest battles: "Even infantry soldiers who find themselves in complete hell, where they would no one else was given for them.'
It is a series of procedures that fighters with basic training are usually not allowed to perform themselves, they are waiting for a more experienced medic. Typically, this is any loosening of the tourniquet on the injured limb. Thus, Cuba often helps soldiers overcome their fears of more demanding procedures such as wound tamponade. With a sensitive consultation, they help prevent lifelong disability. "Although they are often afraid of tamponing a wound in a field shelter and complete darkness, we stimulate them via radio so that they can do it. We say that they have to manage it somehow and we encourage them, for example, by saying that there is not much time left. We also deal with situations where the tourniquet must not be removed, but can be moved. If amputation is necessary later, the injured person will be left with a larger part of the limb, knee or elbow, and his whole life will be much easier. Although we cannot hear the call for evacuation immediately, we are at least present from a distance." Thanks to consultations, they also monitor the wounded from the moment of injury to the point of stabilization, and are therefore under supervision, which is essential for rescue. There is often neither the space nor the conditions in combat to record the time of strangulation of the wound and changes in status since the injury.
Remote consultation is psychologically demanding not only for those who treat according to the advice, but also for the medics. As Kuba points out, whether a given medic from her unit can handle such a consultation certainly does not depend only on professional knowledge and protocols. Psychological barriers play a much bigger role. "You take responsibility even from a distance, even though you can't see the injury. But I think we've at least saved a lot of arms and legs since the introduction of remote consultations. Not to mention lives, none of that. For that, I am in charge of the supply. I have certain options because of my history, and many people who know me want to send something to our brigade - medicine, equipment or something else. Thanks to my capabilities, I can then redirect it to where it is needed."
Influencership during the war
The situation of the media influencer is telling for today's situation. Where government supplies fall short, invention comes from resources collected from volunteers. Fundraising in a crisis brought a parallel competition for attention. As a rule, when a brigade has attention on social networks, it also has greater volunteer support and serves a lot better in it. For individuals on the frontline, additional funding from fundraising brings an additional burden: "Of course, if I didn't publish beautiful photos and videos of a handsome soldier holding first aid kits, I wouldn't have anything to buy more first aid kits. Photo reports take a lot of time. I can't always take pictures of myself with the things delivered, so I always have to take a picture of the person I'm giving the things to. Recently it was, for example, a stretcher. They promised me that they would take a picture with them before leaving, but the stretcher is already in the field. They're evacuating someone on them, and it's clear that no one will take a photo with them for a PR thank-you."
The monthly consumption of tourniquets is now at its peak again and there is a shortage of them. For the first time since the total shortage at the beginning of the invasion. And Cuba also has problems with completing collections and supplying medical supplies to soldiers: "Before, I never experienced a situation where I ran out of tourniquets, I always had a reserve. I normally get packages with dozens of items and now I'm literally down to zero. In an emergency, I already had to dismantle complete first-aid kits in order to have enough tourniquets for supplies. But then I couldn't give out these incomplete first aid kits. We have four limbs, so four pieces of tourniquets per soldier is the bare minimum. Not to mention the situation where they have to use two or three tourniquets on the wound, because the first one did not tighten the wound enough.'
The position of women in the military
During the ten years of the war, the acceptance of women in the military changed radically. Although Kuba is now a respected doctor and no longer alludes to problematic situations, she recalls that the earlier attitude towards women in the army was not so welcoming: some form of sexism. There are also those who are still against women in the army. It seems to me that even if I carried them out of a burning house in my arms, they would still say, 'Damn, what was the need for a woman here?' But the army is changing. The attitude towards women is changing and the women themselves in the army are also changing. They are developing and proving their effectiveness. We recently had a new woman come to us. We are just getting her started on the whole process and all the guys on our team are absolutely fine. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl. The main thing is that one does one's job.''
Changes in the army can also be observed on the border between the symbolic and practical levels. In addition to women's combat positions, one of these is the uniform itself, which indicates military affiliation. It was the Veteranka workshop, which Cuba is behind, that participated in the competition of the Ministry of Defense for the design of the female uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "The issue of comfort is extremely important. If in civilian life we can easily afford to wear clothes tailored to men's measurements, since we are not so concerned about comfort, then not here. Here we are constantly in conditions where comfort decides whether we can fulfill the assignment. Of course, the first example is breasts. If there are no pleats on the cut, then the uniform blouse will drag the shoulders. Another thing is the length of the pants. If I need to kneel down quickly, the knee pads won't sit on my knees at all due to men's measurements. In addition to comfort, it's also about dignity. It means that as a society we understand that the military is not just for men and by men. If we serve, we should serve equally. We should feel that women are not a secondary category, but that we are all equal with men."
With Kuba and Karabin, during our farewell, a volunteer from Kyiv hands over a box with humanitarian aid. Several weeks of fundraising for tactical tourniquets paid off, and Cuba will take on dozens of new tourniquets. Photographic documentation of the handover will be made very quickly, because they are already calling Cuba from the stabilization point that within half an hour an evacuation unit will bring several seriously wounded soldiers from the battle.
Termination of drone operators
In an armored van, we arrive at a field a short distance outside the city, where the commander of the Black Raven company from the 93rd Cholodny Yar brigade is waiting for us. A few minutes have passed since arriving at the site and the drone operators are already installing jammers, connections and other equipment for electronics. Several drones lie on a plastic folding table. Sitting in the fishing chairs are two young looking soldiers whom the others call nothing but Bars and Doc. One of them has FPV drone pilot goggles on, the other is his technician. They use remote control to correct the drones in flight over the Donbas harvested field. Another young soldier nicknamed Tichyj is flying a drone nearby.
After a short flight warm-up, the unit will use the exercise to shoot a PR video and announce a new collection. As commander, Bars speaks for the entire unit, asking for contributions to anti-drone defense. The group of soldiers under the scorching sun is photographed on SLR cameras by the press department. As soon as Bars manages not to slur his sentences and the cameras turn off, everyone breathes a sigh of relief. We can then capture the three operators and have a short chat with them.
A funny story from the queue can be told with different intonation
We learn that Barsa was supported by his work as a driving school instructor until the war, while Tichyj worked in agriculture and harvested grain in the Donetsk region. The banter that accompanied their exercise now blends into the beginning of our conversation. Doc, a former vet who volunteered a month after the full-scale invasion broke out, jokingly beckons to join the ZSU: “I wish the boys would join the armed forces themselves. It's not so scary here, it's fun, it has its own vibe. A lot of guys think something terrible is going on here. But no. It's not like that here." But when we ask right away if they have any funny stories from the war, Bars gets serious: "Truthfully, there's not much that's funny about war. But when I was still in the demining unit, we had one such case bordering on a funny story. We went to the exit and the guide of the group got a little lost. We went five hundred meters into the enemy's rear. There were three others with me and they all spoke pure Ukrainian. Since Doc and I are both from Kharkiv, a city right next to the Russian border, we are used to speaking Russian. That's when we simply walked past a couple of soldiers, greeted them in Russian, and at that moment we understood that we were in a place where we had nothing to do. I prayed that none of my comrades would speak. We turned and left in peace. But only thanks to the fact that I know only Russian. There are actually a lot of situations when we find ourselves in the territory of the enemy." Doc picks up on the story and adds another: "We had another case when guys were going with groceries and also took a wrong turn. They walk up to the boys in the field fortifications and say in Russian: 'Look, boys, the commander told us to bring you these supplies, here they are.' They were surprised because they had plenty of supplies, but they waved their hands at it. But after returning to the secondary position, the other boys ask them where the food they were supposed to bring is. Only at that moment did they realize that they had previously entered an enemy trench. They say that the language is decisive, but if the guys only spoke Ukrainian, maybe the whole thing would have turned out differently. So yes, it's a funny story, I look back on it now with a smile, but it can also be told with different intonation and with different emotions."
Motivation to continue defending
After the fall of Avdijivka, even highly motivated soldiers admit that they feel tired and simply want to go home. Even now, the hard-working mobilization of men of military age does not add to the number and length of rotations for those serving on the front lines.
"People generally forget that we are at war," says Bars. "Yes, we are already psychologically scarred. The only thing on my mind now is war and family, nothing more. It's a great shame for us here to see how the cities far from the front have become freed.” All three then nod that it's the hardest to see videos of draft dodgers from the front. And they also experienced goalkeepers who, right from the start, counted on the fact that when they find themselves here, it is clearly the end of them.
At the same time, Doc adds conciliatoryly: "Not everyone has to go directly to the infantry." An important context that is being forgotten is the fact that one soldier in the infantry has to work for five people in the rear. Sure, it gets scary around here, but that's life. I know cases where people don't want to get out of the queue. They want to be useful, but because of their health or mental state or even their beliefs, they cannot fight with a weapon in hand. When I was in the infantry myself, I met guys with pumped up shoulders who you wouldn't expect to say the first time they were shelled that they couldn't handle it and wouldn't last. They then work just a little further away, for example, with signalmen, importing ammunition, working in supply or in the kitchen, and they are just as needed. People are missing everywhere, so brigades today already have websites where you can choose a position in advance, for example in the logistics department. I myself remember how I was in the Bakhmut block of flats one door next to the enemy. I admit, it's not for everyone to hear them up close as they say: 'We have to shoot those ukrops (a derogatory term for Ukrainians, author's note).' But in short, you don't have to be the one to approach the enemy within two hundred meters. I have two tattoos on my hands. On the left I have written 'don't despair' and on the right 'everything will work out'. Basically, if you stick to these two passwords… Everything will be fine.”
After a moment, the two defenders think, and Bars continues: "Really, everyone is afraid. Who wouldn't be afraid of death or taking another's life. But if it doesn't work diplomatically, the only option is to stop the invasion like this. I want to stop her and go home. Not just for a vacation from the front, but to take my family and travel the world." And Doc adds in tow: "I, on the other hand, so that I no longer associate draws with just finding places to dig in and cover from fire," Bars laughs sympathetically and he nods, "but to enjoy the view of nature again. However, we are still at work. It's not time to rest yet.'
When asked whether they encounter incompetent orders from the so-called old school or the difficulties of a strongly vertical structure, which the army undoubtedly is, Doc answers clearly: “It's a job like any other. When you work in a factory, you also have a superior who tells you what to do. I am speaking from my own experience and the commanders I have experienced. As you can see, I am alive. And most importantly, the commander is one thing, but you also have your own head. If something is wrong, we are all responsible. But from personal experience, I can't say I've witnessed any old school. After all, we are not in the army, but at war. Those are two different things.'
The authors work at FaVU BUT in Brno.