The “Combat Witches of Bucha,” a nearly all-female air defense unit in Ukraine, were formed in response to the increasingly frequent drone attacks on Kyiv. The group, made up of women in their 40s and 50s from the suburbs, were all personal friends who grew up together.
The women met while their families were hiding together in a basement during the occupation of Bucha by Russian forces in 2022. “We were sitting and crying together, and someone said, ‘We need to do something instead of just staying here and mourning,'” Valentyna, one of the group leaders, recalled. “And this is how this unit was created.”
The training was intense and physically demanding. The women practiced assembling and operating the Maxim, a recoil-operated machine gun, and studied tactics for neutralizing the enemy drones. On one recent mission, they watched as a male soldier took notes on how quickly they put together the gun during a training session.
Despite their newfound skills and camaraderie, the combat witches still held onto their lives before the war. Valentyna, a retired veterinarian, worried about her missing husband and police officer brother-in-law, killed during the battle. Tetiana, a married mother of a young daughter and stepdaughters from her husband’s previous marriage, lost her father and brother on the same night.
The pain and trauma lingers, and the women said they still don’t sleep easily. But sharing their experiences has helped them healing. “If I’m worried about something at night, there’s always Inna to tell me, or Tetiana. We have all these sisters out there,” says Valentyna, referring to fellow combat witches in the unit.