Ukrainian women have been signing up in growing numbers to serve as combat troops against Russia. The BBC spoke to three of the 5,000 female front-line soldiers who are fighting both the enemy and sexist attitudes within their own ranks.
A slim, blue-eyed, brunette woman is working out in a gym. This might be unremarkable were it not for the fact that according to the Russian media – she is dead.
Andriana Arekhta is a special unit sergeant in the Ukrainian armed forces, preparing to return to the front line.
The BBC found Andriana in a rehabilitation centre in Ukraine – in a location we cannot name for her safety – after she was injured by a landmine in the Kherson region in December.
Numerous text and video reports in Russian celebrate her “death” in graphic detail.
“They published that I am without legs and without hands and that I was killed by them,” says Andriana. “They are professionals in propaganda.”
The reports include lurid descriptions of her such as “executioner”, and an “eliminated Nazi”.
Accusing her of cruelty and sadism without any proof, they appeared shortly after the Ukrainian army had liberated Kherson.
“It’s funny to me. I am alive and I will protect my country,” she says.
Eighteen months on from Russia’s invasion, there are 60,000 women serving in the nation’s armed forces. More than 42,000 are in military positions -including 5,000 female soldiers on the front line – the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine told us.
It added that no woman could be conscripted under Ukrainian law against her will.
But there are particular combat roles which some believe are better performed by women.
“I came to my commander and I asked him, ‘What can I do the best?’ He said, ‘You will be a sniper,'” recalls Evgeniya Emerald – who carried out the role on the front line until recently.
She says female snipers have been romanticised since World War Two, adding there is a very practical reason for this reputation.
“If a man hesitates whether to make a shot or not, a woman will never.
“Maybe that’s why women are the ones giving birth, not men,” she adds – cradling her three-month old daughter as we speak.
The 31 year old, who had military training after Russia invaded Crimea but only joined the army in 2022, was the owner of a jewellery business before the full-scale war.
She has used her entrepreneurial experience to build a strong social media following to raise the profile of Ukrainian female soldiers.
Like Andriana, Evgeniya has been widely referred to as “a punisher” and “Nazi” by Russian media, with hundreds of reports discussing her front line role as a female sniper, and her private life.
Working as a sniper is particularly brutal – says Evgeniya – both physically and mentally.
“Because you can see what is going on. You can see hitting a target. This is a personal hell for everyone who sees that in a [sniper’s] scope.”
Evgeniya, and the other front line women we have spoken to, cannot reveal the number of targets they have hit. But Evgeniya remembers the heightened emotion she felt when she realised she was probably going to have to kill someone.
“For 30 seconds I was shaking – my whole body – and I couldn’t stop it. That realisation that now you’ll do something that will be a point of no return.
“But we didn’t come to them with a war. They came to us.”
The percentage of women in the Ukrainian military has been growing since the first Russian invasion in 2014, reaching over 15% in 2020.
But while many female troops are serving in combat roles against Russia, they say there is an extra battle within their own ranks against sexist attitudes.
Evgeniya says she faced this before she established her authority and confidence as a front-line sniper.
“When I had just joined the special forces, one of the fighters came to me and said, ‘Girl what are you doing here? Go and cook borshch [Ukrainian traditional soup].’ I felt so offended at that moment I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? I can be in the kitchen, but I can also knock you out’.”
Another Evgeniya, Evgeniya Velyka from the Arm Women Now charity – which provides help to the Ukrainian female soldiers, agrees: “In society exists a strong opinion that girls go to the army to find a husband.”
She says women have also told her about cases of physical abuse.
“We can’t imagine the scale of the problem because not every female soldier wants to talk about this,” she says.
Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister, Hanna Malyar, told the BBC those were just a “few cases” in contrast to “hundreds of thousands” mobilised.