We have a box with “women’s humanitarian aid”, which includes various personal care products. We send such a box to female defenders on the front line, because not every woman has the opportunity to go to the store. If you are on the frontline, one of the team goes to the store, and this happens once a week, so you should always have a basic personal care kit at hand: pads/tampons/menstrual cups, dry showers and shampoo, wet wipes (lots of them), moisturiser, lip balm (skin gets weathered in winter and dries in summer). When you are on the front line, you often have to work in the open air.

But in fact, this entire kit, with the exception of pads and tampons, is used by both women and men. This is a classic set. Then each person adds something different to it, depending on what they use. There may be a need for a lens solution if a person wears lenses, some special toothpaste or special medicinal creams. There are those who need specific medications.

There is an important point about medicines: women need pills for thrush and cystitis. Unfortunately, due to the cold working conditions and the constant lack of good hygiene, these are common diseases among women at the front. 

So you need to have such medicines with you, as well as painkillers. Because it is not always possible to go to a pharmacy or ask someone to go there. And even if there is a pharmacy nearby, it doesn’t always have these medicines.

No, it isn’t. The male uniform is definitely not suitable for women, just as the female uniform is not suitable for men. Because we have a completely different body composition. Women have breasts, they have narrower shoulders, a narrower waist, wider hips, and the male uniform doesn’t fit us. Or even if it does, it’s too big. And it is clear that this is uncomfortable. 

Women’s uniforms have already been approved by the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, but we are not seeing a decrease in requests for it, they are only growing exponentially. That’s why we’re still closing requests for women’s uniforms on a daily basis.

The uniforms we send to the front line to our defenders are of our own design, we developed the pattern for this uniform in the summer of 2022, organised the whole process on our own and found a partner factory in the Kharkiv region that has been sewing high-quality women’s uniforms since autumn 2022. These uniforms are comfortable, because our task is to provide our defenders with quality, not to tick the box “provided”. The clothes of a serviceman or servicewoman should be their second skin. I am glad that we are able to find partners who share this opinion with us and with whom we can be effective in our work of providing for our defenders.

One can simply text us on Instagram in private messages or call us at the number listed on the page. And we will deal with the request individually.

For example, defender Hannah writes to us that she needs a sleeping bag, size 37 shoes, a women’s uniform and a box of female humanitarian aid. And we send Hannah exactly the things she needs. It is absolutely free.

The amount of one closed request is on average from 10 to 50 thousand UAH. We have about 300 closed individual requests per week, which is the minimum.

There is no difference in helmets. The only issue is the size. Very often, female defenders send me photos where they are wearing a helmet that looks like a bucket on their head and is not secured. And it looks funny, but it’s actually dangerous, because it just hinders you, and you can’t take it off because it’s dangerous. However, oversized armour is just as dangerous as not wearing it. Therefore, it is very important that women defenders understand the size (girth) of their heads and choose a helmet according to these indicators. It should be tight, not loose and not pressing. Women are more likely to wear sizes S and M. Men – L.

As for body armour, this issue is no less important than any other equipment.

Anatomy is important. Women have breasts, and a men’s bulletproof vest can’t be an effective protection because it does not protect the areas exposed due to the curve.

In addition, the weight of 7 kg for one plate is a lot. 3 kg is fine. At the same time, the level of protection should be appropriate to the place and characteristics of the person’s work. We send defenders armour plates with protection level 4+ and weighing less than 6 kg a set.

The more we focus on the difference between the sexes of men and women, rather than on equal provision for people in the army, the more we exacerbate the problem. What we would like to focus on is the quality of the equipment, taking into account different anatomical features. For example, when we select boots for women defenders for a size 37, we need to understand that military stores don’t supply shoes in sizes 36, 35 and 37: it’s simply not profitable for them. Because there are much fewer women in the defence forces, and therefore the segment of buyers with shoe sizes smaller than 40 is narrower. It’s not profitable.

The story is similar at the supply warehouse, as women’s sizes are unpopular. This is due to the fact that previously it was not needed in such volumes and our country was not ready for so many female military volunteers. 

So there are definitely problems with sizes. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about the fragility of a woman’s feet, because our women on the front line are not fragile flowers. They are soldiers, but of the other sex.

A doctor, a military woman, a teacher or a co-founder of an NGO – we are all people and specialists in different fields. And it is normal to take into account the anatomical and physiological characteristics of each person.