“Let’s go,” the Ukrainian MP tells CNN as air raid sirens sound across Kiev’s dawn sky. “It kind of disrupts your day, but you learn to live with it.”
Vasylenko wanted to meet in Maidan Square, where pro-European Ukrainian activists campaigned for their rights in 2014 and forced pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to flee.
Today, the mother-of-three insists that Russia will never take over the country’s capital. We ask if she has a message for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We tell him that life goes on, we live on. Your war, your fight against us is now in the background – and we will keep fighting as long as we have to, but we will live on at the same time,” she says.
This fight involves her own AK-47 and a pistol that she holds close to her heart.
On Twitter, where she has built up a large fan base, she posts pictures from everyday life.
“New kind of weekend fun,” she captioned alongside a picture from gunnery practice.
Another post said: “Parliament still works… Even in war we want to keep democracy going.”
Vasylenko leads us to a cafe-turned-war-canteen where volunteers churn out 600 meals for the army, national defense, hospitals and emergency shelters.
As we flip through the pictures of their three children, it becomes clear that staying on the front lines comes at an enormous personal cost. A few weeks ago she sent her children away for their safety.
Speaking about her youngest child, who will be 10 months in a few days, she says, “She’s kind of looking at me like, ‘Really mom? Really, will you be separated from me?”
But Vasylenko is sticking to her decision to stay, saying it’s her duty.
On Wednesday, she will travel to France as part of efforts to take Ukraine’s case to the world.
“I’m where I need to be. Things happened for a reason, I firmly believe that, there is a reason why I was elected in 2019,” says Vasylenko. “We have a task, we have a duty, we will fulfill it, then we will see where life takes us.”