Ukrainian Military] 18-Year-Old Female Medic Says She Had No Choice but Not to Go to the Front Lines

Field Report.
Fighting the Russian Army while taking online university classes without consulting her mother

At 21:30 on November 6, a train from Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine arrived at Kyiv station. Most of the passengers getting off the train were soldiers returning to Kyiv on leave. As one young woman alighted on the platform, a woman in a camouflage raincoat approached and gave her a tight hug.

It has been months since 18-year-old Sofia, a medic in the eastern battleground of Liman, and her mother, Anya, a Ukrainian military officer, have seen each other, but the father and daughter have only two days together in Kyiv. After a brief vacation, Sofia heads back to Liman, while Anya heads to Davrovorje in the east on a mission.

With the Russian army invading Ukraine, I had no choice but not to go to the front lines. I had no choice but to join the Ukrainian army and fight or be occupied by the Russians.

Sofia’s dream of becoming a photographer was interrupted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2010. Her three-person team works 72-hour shifts. Traveling in armored SUVs, their main duty is to take on wounded soldiers on the front lines in the rear, administer first aid, and transport the seriously injured to the nearest hospital.

Studying Law on the Front Line

The situation on the front lines is worse than before. The Russians are advancing, and our bases have changed and retreated many times. The saddest thing is that the world is forgetting Ukraine and isolating us. Three years have passed since the war began and we are exhausted” (Sofia).

Drones are a particular threat on the battlefield. Russian military drones preferentially target medic vehicles because they have a significant impact on the morale of soldiers who fight alongside danger on the front lines. There is no effective countermeasure against “FPV drones,” which carry bombs and fly at high speeds; in November, a friend of Sofia’s, who also served in Liman, was killed in action by Russian forces.

Sofia’s friend was killed in November while serving in Liman during a Russian military attack. My mother, who is a soldier, also goes to the front, and we understand what we have to do for each other.

At a waiting area 5 km from the front line, Sophia was taking advantage of her standby time to take online classes at the university. I was struck by the sight of Sophia learning about the law as she listened to the call to deploy over the radio.

Her 44-year-old mother, Anya, serves with the 411th Independent UAV Battalion.’ During the Ukrainian conflict in Crimea and the Donbass region in 2002, she went to the front as a medic, pretending to her parents that she was working in a hospital in Harkiou. Anya recalls.

My parents probably knew, but they didn’t object to my going to war. Now, when I see my own daughter working on the front lines as a medic as well, I wonder if my parents felt the same way.

Sophia is a child with many talents, so I sometimes think, ‘Why does she have to go to the battlefield when she doesn’t have to go there to be active?’ Sometimes I think, ‘Why do I have to go to the battlefield when I don’t have to go to the battlefield? I am proud that my daughter is defending our country, but at the same time, as a mother, I have mixed feelings.”

Survival…My Greatest Wish

The Russian military is currently expanding its area of control in Ukraine. According to a soldier I interviewed fighting on the front line in Pokrovsk, a fierce battleground in the east of the country, the Ukrainian military does not have enough infantry on the front line, and they are currently using drones to stop the onrushing Russian troops.

The ever-evolving Russian military drones and their glide bombs, which cannot be detected by radar and cannot be intercepted, are the biggest threat to Ukrainian soldiers.

When we asked Sofia what her greatest wish is as she continues to work under these conditions, she replied.

First of all, I want to survive. If I survive until the war is over, my wish is to live a quiet life with my dog in a small house in the mountains, surrounded by nature.

From the December 27, 2024 issue of FRIDAY