“Ukraine is conscripting women.”
And many are doing a fantastic job.
And plenty of them are doing great work - not necessarily on the front.
Some of the best snipers in the field are women (on both sides as it happens!)
A Ukrainian lass I know speaks six languages fluently, and was working as a private tutor this time last year. She arrived in our town as a refugee in March, picked up on the news stories about the AFU training in the UK, contacted the agency supplying admin staff, and bingo - she ended up translating for the MOD.
Now she’s now gone back to Ukraine and is working as a military interpreter.
The agency she worked for provides translators to embassies, NATO, the United Nations, and the European Union.
In the last 2 weeks, 7 out of the first 20 adults who came to my tiny town at the start of the war (her included), from eastern Ukraine, have gone back home.
Willingly.
2 are men who came here with their families and were never planning to stay anyway, but the other 5 are women who came alone and didn’t think they could contribute anything meaningful to the war effort until after they got here.
All five found jobs, bought a few Bayraktars between them, learnt new skills, supported their folks back home with money, and they are now going back to do their part - brimming with optimism and confidence.