EXCLUSIVE The Ukrainian women taking men's places on the frontline: As volunteers run low and thousands flee conscription, Kyiv's fearless women include mother-turned-sniper Anastasia who is returning to battle despite losing her leg By Sally Williams Published: 13:08, 24 June 2024 | Updated: 13:20, 24 June 2024 e-mail 1 View comments Anastasia woke before dawn. She had slept fitfully in a bunker near the frontline in south-east Ukraine . It was November and the temperature was zero, but it felt even colder – artillery and airstrikes had destroyed the spindly trees leaving fields exposed to the wind.
The constant rumble of artillery vibrated through the mud walls. The enemy was very close. Like everyone else in 118th Mechanised Brigade, a unit of the Ukrainian ground forces created in February 2023 when the army was expanding in preparation for the summer offensive, 25-year-old Anastasia Tarnavskaia – code name, Phoenix – was utterly worn out.
She'd been in the army for 18 months, having joined up out of a desire to protect Yarema, her five-year-old son, and her parents, who lived a 13-hour drive away in Lviv, west Ukraine. Ukraine does not conscript women – unlike men – but it is running out of soldiers: 31,000 have been killed in action since February 2022 (although no official figures have been released) and many don't want to face the obvious risks. According to reports, at least 20,000 men have dodged the draft and fled Ukraine illegally, while officials in rec.