A very special unit Suddenly the "witches of Butscha" are taking on Putin's army

Ukraine sends more men to the eastern front line. This is tearing gaps in the defense elsewhere. And this is where women are increasingly coming into play - like the "witches of Butscha".

When the air raid sirens wail at night, the women know what they have to do. 27-year-old Angelina, for example, has only been a member of the mobile air defense unit for two months, but she knows the procedures inside out. In full combat gear, anti-aircraft machine gun at the ready, she drives a pickup truck to a tree-lined position near Butscha, a suburb of Kiev.

Here, she and the other four women in the unit set up the rifle and wait. Only the chirping of crickets breaks the silence - until the Shahed drone launched by the Russians is shot down, that night in August by another unit nearby.

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Angelina enjoys knocking invaders' drones out of the sky, as she told the AP news agency. "It's an adrenaline rush". Angelina, like other women in the group, spoke out on condition that only their first names or military identifiers be used.

Men on the front line, women in volunteer units

Women are enrolling in increasing numbers in volunteer mobile units responsible for shooting down Russian drones. They are filling the gaps left by more men being sent to the front line in the east. Although women make up only a fraction of the country's armed forces, their deployment in various roles that are otherwise traditionally carried out by men is highly important.

At least 70 Ukrainian women have been recruited in recent months for drone combat by the Butsha Defense Forces, according to the commander in the area, Andriy Velarty. It is part of a nationwide campaign to recruit female volunteers for part-time service in local defense units. The women come from different social backgrounds, from non-working mothers to doctors like Angelina, and call themselves the "Witches of Butsha", a reference to their nightly role of guarding the skies.

Some were motivated by the Russian massacre of hundreds of Butsha residents during the month-long occupation of the village shortly after the start of the war in February 2022. The Russians left the dead in the streets, houses and mass graves. Angelina treated the injured at the time. "We were here, we saw these horrors," she says. When she and her friend Olena - also a doctor - saw a sign calling for women to volunteer last June, "we didn't hesitate", says the Ukrainian.

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Tough drill during training

The training is tough. At a recent round in August, female recruits aged between 27 and 51 were tested on how quickly they could assemble and disassemble a rifle. "I have eighth graders who can do better than that," their instructor bellowed. The women acquired basic knowledge of various weapons and mines, tactics and how to spot Russian infiltrators. They trained no less than the men, says Lidija, who has been there for a month.

The 34-year-old saleswoman and mother of four says her main motive is to help protect her family. Her children look at her differently since she started wearing a combat suit, she says. "My younger son always asks me, "Mom, do you carry a gun?" I say, "Yes". He asks, "Do you shoot?" I say, "Of course I do." On July 31, she was on duty when Russia launched 89 Shahed drones, all of which were destroyed. Lidija was an assistant machine gunner that night.

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After the night shift, the day job begins, be it as a housewife, mother, sales clerk or - as with Angelina and Olena - as doctors. As the sun rises, they both remove their heavy combat gear and go home, slipping into their hospital outfits, ready for their shift in the intensive care unit of the clinic where they work. When midnight comes again, they will be back at their other job, waiting for incoming drones. "Today I slept for two hours and 40 minutes," says Olena.

As doctors, they care for the wounded

Both women are married, their partners are soldiers. Angelina, an anesthetist, met her boyfriend in hospital, where he was being treated for a combat injury. Seeing the many wounded Ukrainian soldiers was one reason why she signed up to volunteer. "If we can do something to help bring our victory closer, why not?" she says.

The women in the mobile units are on duty every two or three days, working in groups of five with a female machine gunner, gunner's assistant, fire support, a female driver and a female commander. Angelina's unit sometimes spends whole nights driving back and forth between their base and position.

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It's not easy to get a drone out of the sky: "You have to practise all the time," says Angelina. Her platoon leader, called Calypso, holds training every Sunday in shooting and attack skills, among other things.

There is no difference between male and female volunteers, she says: "From the moment we come to serve, sign a contract, we are no longer women, we are soldiers. We have a job to do, and the men understand that too. We don't come here to sit around and cook borscht or anything." Quite the opposite. Calypso says she has the feeling that the women and she would take out the drones with their bare hands, with sticks, "if we had to - anything to stop them from landing on our children, friends and family".