Waiting for the Russians: The Women's War Course and the Territorial Defense Battalions

While the Russians are massing troops along the border with Ukraine and the West is buzzing that Putin has just attacked, life in Ukraine is going on as normal, at least on the surface, writes German journalist Daniela Pruger for "Tagesspiegel". Accustomed to living in a state of war for eight years, Ukrainians without any panic are preparing just in case for a "Russian invasion" announced by whoever arrives, which the Kremlin persistently denies.

Report Daniel Pruger gives an insight into part of Ukrainian everyday life.

War course for women

Back in 2014, Oleksandr Bilecki fought against Russian separatists financed and supported by Russia in the east of Ukraine. In one of the halls of the university, war veteran Taras Shevchenko holds self-defense and survival courses for women, whom he says are "more conscientious" than men and will pass on their knowledge to others.

Ukraine Armed Forces Day

In the corridor in front of the amphitheater there is a long queue where about 200 women are waiting who want to learn how to behave in crisis situations - even in the worst case a possible Russian invasion. Bilecki explains that the most important thing is to "start from the worst", so every other outcome is "a kind of bonus". The audience is motley, there are fitness instructors, mothers and housewives, doctors, many with manicured nails, listening carefully, writing down what they hear in their notebooks.

While a PowerPoint presentation is projected in the background, Bilecki lists the most important things: mental readiness, tactics, ability, equipment. He says that they learned from history that in the event of a siege of the city, there may be a loss of electricity, a shortage of foodstuffs, and the cessation of the work of the city's cleanliness.

Ukrainian Women's Guard

While Oleksandr was at the front, his wife, lawyer Olena (39) was in Kiev and created a Facebook group "Ukrainian Women's Guard". The group provided emotional support to members whose husbands were wounded or killed at the front. Along the way, they were also trained in how to shoot and defend themselves. The Women's Guard was last active in 2018, by which time over 30.000 women had undergone its training. Relatively peaceful years followed.

Olena, a mother of three and pregnant with the fourth, now helps her husband organize these courses. He says that the women who come want to be informed, they want to know what supplies to get, where to hide in case of danger, how to network the neighborhood in case of war.

Ukraine Russia Tensions

Oksana (44), who fled Donetsk in the east of the country with her husband in 2014, sits in the last row of the hall. Her parents still live in a town that is fully controlled by Russian-backed separatists. Because she occasionally visits her family, her name will not be given.

She says that she came to this course because she wants to "get things in order in her head". So far she has only acquired a first aid kit. He says that in 2014, just two years after the European Football Championship, which was organized in Poland and Ukraine and where matches were also played in Donetsk, he was "unprepared". He doesn't want to feel so helpless ever again.

A pad to the throat

Other women say they don't know where else to get information. When asked by Bilecki who has a weapon or at least pepper spray at home, several female listeners raise their hands.

Oleksandr advises them to ask where there are air raid shelters in the neighborhood, who among the neighbors is a doctor, who is a craftsman, who owns a dacha to which they could escape.

His lecture ends with practical training, which the women present have been waiting for all along. An ex-soldier demonstrates to one of the course participants how to defend oneself against attackers, how a writing pad can be turned into a weapon: it is rolled up, becomes so stiff, that it can be used to hit the larynx or the temple. It shows how it's done.

Territorial defense battalions

While the state tourism organization promotes the country with a slogan "Keep Calm and Visit Ukraine", and on the northern outskirts of the city there is also a combat training for reservists, in which women can also participate. Motocross riders often come there, on the asphalt factory grounds.

Now, every Saturday, a group attached to the Territorial Defense Battalions, founded in 2014 and operating as part of the Ukrainian army, gathers there. In case of war, hundreds of thousands of reservists were trained in the complex of these battalions. A survey by the Kyiv Institute for Public Opinion Research shows that one third of Ukrainians are ready to take up arms in the event of war.

Shooting range in Babin Jar

Thirty minutes by car from there, Roman Kozub is in a shooting range. And this thirty-five-year-old is ready to defend his country. He says that in this situation, when countries like Germany send 5000 helmets to Ukraine, he feels that he has to take matters into his own hands. Roman is the father of two children and works in the IT industry.

Ukraine Epiphany

In the Babin Yar gorge west of the center of Kiev, where SS units killed at least 1941 people in 100.000, there are not only memorials, but also shooting ranges. Men who are considering joining the defense battalions meet there. There are about twenty men in the parking lot of the former Soviet building turned into a sports center. They know each other, they greet each other. They talk in Russian and Ukrainian, tell jokes, retell action movies and thank each other for being brave enough to serve their country.

Kozub learns what awaits him here: from disaster relief to combat. "In case the city is attacked, there will be many wounded, many people will start to run," he says, adding that "as a man, he wants to defend the city with a weapon in his hand."

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