(To mark this March 8th, we're turning over our social media to some of the brave women in Ukraine, fighting against the Russian invasion & attempted genocide)
"This day grew in meaning for me last year. It happened so that accidentally I came to Ukraine to fight on the 8th of March. I didn't plan that. Everything was too much in chaos, everything was too uncertain and the world seemed to be going too crazy to give any special meaning to any day. But I like the symbolism of it. And it's easy to count the days I've spent here already. War is a very strange thing. The worst things happen here as well as the best things happen here. Or maybe I should say the best people and the worst people are here.
Many of the best people here are women. Strong women, deserving all the admiration, but usually they are very humble and simple. Very often they are much braver than an average man. Maybe because usually women don't come here to kill, they come to fight for lives. This is the main reason why there are so many female medics. I am one of them. It doesn't mean that they hide and don't take risks. Medics go where someone has already got injured or killed, they come for others, forgetting themselves. I have worked with many female medics. They are not afraid to get killed. They are afraid only that they will make a mistake and will not be professional enough to save others. They are afraid to come too late.
We often get attacked. We often get killed. Just yesterday I lost another friend and comrade. She was just a young girl, she laughed a lot, she loved life, she was beautiful and bright in every meaning. And she was killed while trying to evacuate the injured. There are many others we lost on the way.
I hope that when we all come back home, when the war is over, the history will not turn into glorification of killers. I hope we will remember all the beautiful saviors. I hope that people will remember all the women who sacrificed so much to end this war. Volunteers, medics, fighters... And today, on the 8th of March, I hope you will remember the strongest women who are struggling this very moment here with me."
-Shadow, paramedic in Bakhmut
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