Ukraine’s 13th National Guard Khartiia Brigade shared a message across all social media accounts. "Her strength is her mind. Her choice is Khartiia," the message written in a sleek neon green script read.
The brigade launched its first-ever women's military campaign, to attract them to tech roles in Ukraine's military.
As of 2025, around 70,000 women are serving in Ukraine's nearly million-strong military, according to defence. However, it still lacks a welcoming environment for female soldiers, as the military service faces Soviet-rooted prejudice, limitations on education, career growth and access to combat positions.
However, some units like Khartiia, which are comparatively progressive, are working to change the situation. Particularly, they are moderately changing internal practices to better integrate women into units.
The 13th Khartiia Brigade is a combat brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, formed in 2022, to fight against Russia's war. It was founded by volunteers to defend the country against Russia's aggression from the Kharkiv region.
Khartiia hopes to make women feel they are welcomed and can thrive in different positions in the Ukrainian army.
As the war worsens, the Ukrainian military needs all the help it can get in attracting new recruits to face Russia in the brutal war.
Ukraine's army doesn't conscript women, hence female volunteers represent a highly motivated and under-utilised category in the army, as per the activists.
"Motivated women are better at any job than unmotivated men," said Alina Andreieva, a drone operator in Khartiia’s reconnaissance unit.
She was obsessed with the idea of recruiting women since she joined the Ukraine army about a year and a half ago, Andreieva told the Kyiv Independent.
Another key example of a woman in the Ukrainian army is of a 21-year-old nurse, who requested to be identified only by her callsign "Jess". She is a part of Khartiaa and quickly became a key operator of ground robotic systems within months of joining the brigade.
"I quickly learned basic things like soldering and assembling communication kits for our drones and figured out how the drones worked (and was then able to) propose new ideas — different flight controllers and what we could connect to them to make it informative," she told the Kyiv Independent.
Source: Wion