The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, that began on 24 February 2022, has had a significant impact on women across Ukraine and Russia, both as combatants and as civilians. In Ukraine, the invasion has seen a significant increase in women serving in the military as well as a significant number of women leaving the country as refugees. In Russia, women have led the anti-war movement.
First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska has stated that "Our resistance, as our future victory, has taken on a particularly feminine face," and has praised Ukraine's women for serving in the military, raising their children in wartime, and providing essential services. The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has called the invasion "a crisis for women and girls," stating that "from heightened trafficking and gender-based violence to the loss of crucial livelihoods and rising poverty levels, women and girls of Ukraine are facing severe impacts."
Background
Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, there has been a significant increase in women's roles in the Ukrainian military, including several positions that had previously been reserved only for men being opened up to women, resulting in the total number of women serving more than doubling. Ukrainian woman have served in the armed forces since World War I, but were only officially recognized as combat veterans with full military pensions in the Soviet era and, later, after the start of the war in Donbas in 2014.
Starting in December 2021, women in certain professions were included in draft registers. However, discrimination and harassment remain significant problems within the Ukrainian military. Ukrainian women civilians have also faced significant dangers and issues during the war. Roma women have faced particular levels of discrimination, often being refused internally displaced status and facing intense racism.
Despite long-term personnel shortages in the Russian Armed Forces ever since the 2008 Russian military reform, the Russian Ministry of Defence has made little effort to enlist women to fill the gaps, instead choosing to crack down on draft-evading men in order to increase its coverage levels from 70% in 2012 to 90–95% in 2020. As of 2010, women who did join the military mostly did so out of financial necessity (67%) rather than a professional career choice (6%). Although throughout the 2010s many women sought to join the armed forces (for example, more women applied for military universities than men), they faced systemic discrimination as women were not permitted in frontline combat roles, barred from holding ranks higher than colonel (), and denied jobs such as "driver, mechanic, sniper or gunner". Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu stated in May 2020 that 41,000 women ( 4.26% of total active duty forces) were enlisted in the Russian Armed Forces. According to a 2020 poll conducted by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), 63% of Russians, including a majority of women, said they didn't want a daughter of theirs to join the military (with 42% saying "the army is not a woman's business, the army is for men").
Globally, woman and girls face a heightened risk during wartime due to displacement and breakdowns of the normal protections in society, and sexual violence has been used as a tactic in war, terror, torture and political repression by many. Per UN Women more than 70% of women experience sex-based and gender-based violence during a crisis situation, and the Lancet Medical Journal published works found that women and girls affected by armed conflict are exposed to an increased amount of traumatic experiences.
In the Ukrainian military
A significant number of women have volunteered to fight for the Ukrainian forces in response to the invasion. Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko of Georgia State University have stated that "Ukrainian women have historically enjoyed independence not common in other parts of the globe" and that "Ukraine offers a unique insight into the roles that women can play in defending the nation and as leaders in their own right." In September 2022, Aljazeera stated: "There are about 50,000 women serving in the Ukrainian armed forces in combat and non-combat roles, of which about 10,000 are currently either on the front lines of the war or in jobs that could send them to the front lines, according to Ukrainian military officials. There were about 32,000 women in the military prior to the invasion."
In October 2022, the first all-female prisoner of war exchange occurred between Russia and Ukraine, with 108 Ukrainian women being returned, including 37 who had fought in the Battle of Azovstal.
Conscription
Under the looming threat from Russia, new legislation was enacted on 21 December 2021 requiring women to register for military service, if they are deemed medically fit for military service, are between the ages of 18 and 60, and work in specific professions. In the event of a major war, this expanded reserve of women would be mobilized as part of the national reserve to serve in a broad range of military specialties. According to earlier legislation, women in certain professions were already required to register for military conscription. However, the December 2021 revision of the law regulating Ukraine's military reserves dramatically expanded the number of professions that qualify for mandatory registration with the armed forces. Now women who are librarians, journalists, musicians, veterinarians, and psychologists, among many other professions, are required to register for military service. MP Oleksandra Ustinova stated: "...in [the] current situation, the decision to educate as many people as possible to hold arms and to be ready to serve seems a good one."
Following the 24 February 2022 invasion, the Ukrainian government enforced a mobilisation order on men aged between 18 and 60 to be available for conscription as combatants. In a representative national poll on 3–4 March 2022, 59% of Ukrainian women said they were 'ready to personally participate in the armed resistance to end the Russian occupation of Ukraine.' Though Ukraine's Ministry of Defence significantly expanded the pool of Ukrainian women who are required to register for military conscription into various non-combat roles, due to the initial influx of volunteers many have not been called up for conscription, and many female volunteers who were not required to register have been put on a waiting list. One woman who spoke to reporters said she had been told; "Ok, you will be in line. But now we have too many people". Many men and women who are not in the service of the military volunteer their time and work in supporting their communities in other ways. By mid-March 2022, additional Ukrainian women, after either leaving Ukraine as a refugee or living abroad, had also returned to the country to enlist in the armed forces, or provide support services, such as helping others evacuate. According to an April 2022 survey, 69% of women intended to help by providing non-military support (delivering food, information, or ammunition) to the Ukrainian army, 65% of women were thinking of caring for injured civilians and soldiers, and 27% of women had plans to join the Ukrainian forces in various combat roles.
Notable individuals
In the opening days of the invasion, field medic Inna Derusova was said to have saved the lives of more than 10 soldiers during the Battle of Okhtyrka, before she was killed in a Russian artillery attack. On 12 March 2022, Derusova became the first woman to be posthumously awarded the highest national military title of Hero of Ukraine. During the invasion, became the first woman to command an artillery division in the Ukrainian army. , an artillery platoon commander, gained prominence on the internet after a video of her fighting during the Siege of Chernihiv went viral. Sarah Ashton-Cirillo is an American who initially worked as a journalist during the invasion before resigning to enlist as a combat medic in the Ukrainian military, later serving as a spokeswoman for the Territorial Defense Forces.
War crimes and violence against women
Even before the 2022 invasion started, women and girls living in conflict-affected eastern Ukraine bordering Russia have not felt safe – neither in public nor at home – since the war in Donbas broke out in 2014. The situation was worsened by devastating social and economic crises, access to weaponry, and trauma created by the ongoing armed conflict between the government of Ukraine and Russia-backed separatists. Reports showed women and girls especially found themselves in a desperate situation of domestic and sexual violence without protection from that violence, due to the war.
Women have been targeted with sexual violence in the invasion. Ukrainian MPs Lesia Vasylenko, Alyona Shkrum, Maria Mezentseva, and Olena Khomenko stated that most elderly women in Russian-occupied cities "were executed after being raped or took their own lives." Due to the limited communication with areas under Russian control or contested areas under heavy fighting the exact number of sexual violence cases have been difficult to track or respond to in a timely manner. The president of La Strada Ukraine; a charity supporting survivors of trafficking, domestic violence and sexual assault, stated their emergency hotline has had several calls for assistance from women and girls but due to the fighting the charity cannot help them physically. Reports of gang rapes, assaults at gunpoint and sexual violence in front of children have all been reported to Ukrainian and international authorities and law enforcement and media personnel as Russian troops have withdrawn. Female villagers were warned to make themselves look unattractive by removing jewellery, donning headscarves and dressing as old women.
After the first official investigation into claims of sexual violence by Russia soldiers in the invasion started, The Times of London, published an account on 28 March 2022 of a woman who claimed that her husband was killed and she was raped in the village of Shevchenkove by Russian soldiers on 9 March 2022. The Mariupol city council has claimed that Russian forces have forcibly deported several thousand Ukrainian women and children from the city to Russia. The Mariupol hospital airstrike targeted a maternity ward in Mariupol. Sexual violence between the Ukrainian population has also been reported with a man from the Ukrainian territorial defense services arrested in Vinnytsia after he reportedly attempted to rape a female teacher who was trying to flee the area.
Civilians
Impact on reproductive health and rights Female reproductive healthcare, including pregnancy related services in Ukraine, have faced significant disruption due to the invasion. The International Federation for Human Rights reports that the war "is having a severe impact on women and girls sexual and reproductive rights." Caroline Nokes, Chair of the British Parliament's Women and Equalities Committee, has stated that "women escaping the war have lost access to crucial healthcare. Pregnant and breastfeeding women are often unable to access vital prenatal and postnatal services or find places to give birth safely." A study using app-based technology found that women in Ukraine were less likely to report their pain after reporting increased stress at the onset of the invasion, with the latter causing long-term health impacts.