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"Her power is her thoughts. Her selection is Khartiia." That was the message — written in modern neon inexperienced script — shared throughout all social media accounts of Ukraine’s thirteenth Nationwide Guard Khartiia Brigade this Might.
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 almost million-strong navy as of 2025, in accordance with the Protection Ministry. However navy service largely stays an unwelcoming surroundings for feminine troopers, who face Soviet-rooted prejudice, limitations on training, profession development, and entry to fight positions.
Some progressive items like Khartiia are working to vary the state of affairs, specifically by updating inside practices to raised combine ladies into items. With the brand new marketing campaign, Khartiia says its hope is to indicate ladies they’re welcome and might thrive in several positions.
As Ukraine continues to face crucial shortages in manpower to combat Russia, the navy wants all the assistance it may well get in attracting new recruits.
Motivated and expert recruits
After almost 3.5 years of full-scale conflict, Ukraine's navy more and more depends on mobilized, somewhat than volunteer, recruits, resulting in items usually receiving much less motivated troopers.
Since Ukraine doesn’t conscript ladies, feminine volunteers characterize 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," mentioned Alina Andreieva, a drone operator in a Khartiia’s reconnaissance unit and the important thing driver of the marketing campaign.
Andreieva informed the Kyiv Impartial that she was “obsessed” with the thought of recruiting ladies since she joined the military a few 12 months 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 "Defend Ukraine," to create the marketing campaign, Andreieva and different feminine troopers from Khartiia have been carefully concerned in its growth.
One other feminine soldier in Khartia, a 21 12 months previous nurse by coaching who requested to be recognized solely by her callsign "Jess," shortly grew to become a pioneering operator of floor robotic methods inside months of becoming a member of the brigade.
"I shortly realized basic 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 informed the Kyiv Impartial in a video interview.
The tech jobs that Khartiia invitations ladies to fill embody drone and floor robotic methods operators, digital warfare and intelligence specialists, and ISTAR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Goal Acquisition, and Reconnaissance) dispatchers, concerned in a NATO strategy in the direction of planning fight operations.
“We actually want ladies in STEM,” mentioned Sofiia Pryduvalova, 30, who does public relations for Khartiia and who co-developed the marketing campaign. “There are a lot of of them (in Ukraine), and so they might make the brigade a lot stronger.”
Progressive tradition
Khartiia, well-known for its incorporation of expertise and NATO requirements into its workflow, grew to become a flagship of the navy corps 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 affix sure items because of this.
"There are brigades that consciously discourage ladies from becoming a member of them, explicitly saying so," Pryduvalova mentioned.
"The time is ripe for girls who need to take issues into their very own palms."
All the ladies from Khartiia interviewed for this story mentioned they really feel protected within the brigade, citing its top-down efforts to modernize and deal with each soldier pretty, no matter gender. Girls of the brigade say in addition they steadily collaborate to advocate for additional adjustments.
"I noticed that an unbiased angle in the direction of ladies was fostered in recruits even throughout coaching," "Jess" mentioned about one among her coaching programs with the brigade.
"Khartiia was the one brigade on the time (after I was enlisting in 2023) that thought of ladies for a fight position," Andreieva mentioned. As of 2025, round 5,500 ladies are serving within the Ukrainian military in front-line fight roles, in comparison with beneath 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 Might, aren't anticipated till this fall, in accordance with Khartiia’s press officer, Volodymyr Dehtiarov.
Accounting for the preliminary interviews, medical fee, and not less than two primary coaching programs offered by the Nationwide Guard and moreover by Khartiia, it may well take not less than three months for a non-specialized recruit to affix their unit’s day by day duties.
"The outcomes to date should not in amount, however high quality," Dehtiarov informed the Kyiv Impartial. Earlier than, ladies who utilized hardly ever listed particular positions they have been excited about, whereas now, extra apply for “communications” or “UAV," due to the marketing campaign movies the place ladies of Khartiia speak about their respective jobs, he mentioned.
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 lot 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 develop into extra seen within the media, some individuals are involved that it’s a step in the direction of obligatory mobilization for girls, mentioned 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 might be a variety of women within the UAV (unmanned aerial automobiles) phase as a result of (somewhat than bodily power,) it favors mind, instinct, and tech abilities," mentioned 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 additionally revolutionize navy universities, the place ladies face obstacles in navy training that instantly have an effect on profession development, in accordance with Pryimak.
"The time is ripe for girls who need to take issues into their very own palms," Andreieva informed the Kyiv Impartial in a written remark she despatched from her front-line place in Kharkiv Oblast.
"Their husbands are both at conflict or useless; their houses have been destroyed, their family members killed or captured; they’ve seen an excessive amount of to take a seat again idly," Andreieva mentioned.
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The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy