Kyiv, Ukraine CNN —
Andrii Kolesnyk and Kseniia Drahanyuk both beam with excitement as they bend over a box.
They are about to unwrap Ukraine’s first-ever military uniform for pregnant women, which they recently commissioned after a pregnant sniper came forward.
The young couple, both TV journalists before the start of the war, are now fully dedicated to their independent NGO ‘Zemlyachki’ or ‘Compatriots’, which procures essential supplies for women in the armed forces.
The initiative began when Andrii’s sister was sent to the front on February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.
“She got men’s uniforms, men’s underwear,” he says. “All that [was] made for men.”
It quickly became clear that female soldiers needed much more than uniforms. From smaller boots to lighter panels for bulletproof vests to hygiene items, everything is in demand.
So the couple turned to private corporate donations, charitable funds, and crowdfunding to purchase merchandise independent of the military. Some tailored garments, such as women’s suits, are made under her own brand by a factory in Kharkiv in the east of the country – including the new maternity uniform.
Other items, including body armor plates, helmets and boots, come from companies in Sweden, Macedonia and Turkey. But Kolesnyk and Drahanyuk say they are struggling with sourcing winter items like sleeping bags and thermal clothing, which will be important for winter comfort.
Kolesnyk says they have so far distributed $1 million worth of equipment and helped at least 3,000 women. If they’re on the front line launching missiles, they might as well do it “with minimal comfort,” he tells CNN.
According to the country’s Defense Ministry, there are currently about 38,000 women in the armed forces.
“We’re doing this to help our government,” says Kolesnyk, not to compete with it. Their hub is overflowing with boxes of kits, all paid for through crowdfunding and grants.
A physical disability prevents Kolesnyk from going to the front with his sister, father and brother-in-law, which saddens him.
“It’s hard for a man to understand that you can’t go there and your sister is there. So I’m trying to do my best here to help not only my family but the whole army,” he says.
Roksolana, 21, who has only given her first name for security reasons, comes in to get a uniform and other gear before heading to her next assignment. An art school graduate, she joined the army in March and is now part of an intelligence unit.
“It’s so precious to have these people who understand that we’re tired of wearing clothes that are three sizes too big,” she says. “We didn’t have helmets, we had old flak jackets, wore tracksuits and sneakers. Now we feel like human beings.”
She giggles as she laces up her new boots with immaculately long fingernails. Before they hug goodbye, Drahanyuk hands Roksolana a copy of The Choice, the best-selling memoir by Holocaust survivor and psychologist Edith Eger. The goal is that this can be a tool to help process trauma. Zemlyachki has also formed partnerships with military psychologists for women to turn to in combat.
Other women, like 25-year-old Alina Panina, receive psychological support from the Ukrainian military. A border guard with a canine unit, Panina spent five months in captivity in the notorious Olenivka prison in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region after escaping the besieged Azovstal Steelworks in Mariupol.
She was eventually released on October 17 as part of an all-female prisoner exchange with Russia and sent to a military hospital for compulsory rehabilitation, under whose care she remains.
Ukraine recently demanded that the International Committee of the Red Cross send a delegation to the Russian POW camp.
“I wasn’t prepared [for captivity]and we’ve talked a lot with other women inmates about how life didn’t prepare us for it [an] Torture,” says Panina at a pizza bar run by veterans in downtown Kyiv.
She says prison guards were “unpredictable people” who sometimes verbally abused prisoners, but she was spared physical harm.
Now the fate of her partner is in the stars. He is also a border guard who is still in captivity. “I know he’s alive, but I don’t know what prison he’s in,” Panina says sadly while scrolling through pictures of him.
When asked what gives her hope, she simply says, “our men, our people.”