“It’s scary – but so is giving birth”: The women’s unit shoots down Russian drones

As darkness falls over Bucha, the witches come out as the Russian attack drones begin to swarm.

The Witches of Bucha, as they call themselves, are a volunteer air defense unit made up almost entirely of women that are now helping protect Ukraine’s skies as more and more men are sent to the front.

More drones will also need to be shot down, often launched in waves from Russia to overwhelm main defenses before a missile attack.

The night shifts allow women to combine their work defending their country with day jobs as teachers, doctors – there is even a manicurist.

Many say it is a way to overcome the powerlessness they felt when Russian forces occupied the Bucha region at the start of the full-scale invasion.

The horror stories of these weeks – including killings, torture and kidnappings – only emerged after Ukrainian forces liberated the area in late March 2022.

Air raids and ancient weapons

“I’m 51, I weigh 100 kg, I can’t walk. I thought they were going to send me away, but they accepted me!” recalls Valentyna, a veterinarian who signed up with the Drone-Busters this summer and now goes by the call sign Valkyrie.

She talks about friends who were deployed to the front and others who died in the fighting, which led her to this role.

“I can do this work. The equipment is heavy, but we women can do it.”

Valentyna is able to demonstrate this a few hours later when an air alert is sounded throughout the region.

Their unit climbs away from their base in the woods, and we follow their pickup truck through the darkness as it bumps into the middle of a field. The four-man team jumps out and begins assembling their weapons.

The machine guns are from another era: two Maxims from 1939, ammunition boxes with red stars from the Soviet era.

Serhiy, the only man on the team, has to manually pour water into bottles as a coolant.

This is all that is available: Ukraine’s best equipment is on the front lines and it is constantly demanding more from its allies.

But the ancient weapons are in perfect condition and the witches say they have shot down three drones since the summer.

“My job is to listen to them,” explains Valentyna. “It’s nervous work. But we have to stay focused [listen out] for the slightest sound.”

Her friend Inna is also in her early 50s and is on one of her first missions.

“It’s scary, yes. But so does giving birth, and I still did that three times,” she laughs and tells me that her own call sign is Cherry: “Because of my car, not because of the tomatoes.”

As a math teacher, she occasionally has to rush out of the woods to attend a class.

“I keep my clothes in the car. My heels. I put on some lipstick and teach the lesson. Then we go back into the car, quickly around the corner and off we go.”

“The boys are gone, but we are here. What can Ukrainian women not do? We can do anything.”

Somewhere on the horizon, a beam of light from another group can be seen scanning the skies for threats above their own patrol zone.

There is no public data on the total number of volunteer units – or how many women are involved. However, as Russia deploys explosives-laden drones almost every night, they help form an additional protective shield around major cities.

From the witches’ position in a field, Yulia tracks two drones on her tablet. They are over the neighboring region, so there is no immediate danger to Bucha, but the machine guns will remain in place until the alarm ends.

No men left

The volunteer commander is a big bear of a man who has just returned from Pokrovsk in the eastern Donbass region, where the fighting is heaviest.

“There are fireworks, all the time,” is how Andriy Verlaty describes it with a smile.

He previously had around 200 men operating and patrolling mobile anti-aircraft units in the Bucha region during the night curfew, many of them unfit for full military service.

Then Ukraine revised its mobilization law, urgently needing more soldiers, and many of the colonel’s crew members suddenly found themselves suitable for deployment to the front.

“About 90% of my men ended up in the army and another 10% hid and scattered like rats. We hardly had anyone left,” Colonel Verlaty says bluntly. “Only men with no legs or half a skull missing.”

He had a choice: fill the roles with men below the mobilization age or recruit women.

“At first it was like a joke: ‘Let’s take the women!’ There wasn’t much trust in them, in the armed forces. But that has really changed,” he says.

Take back control

The witches spend their weekends completing more extensive military training. On the day of our visit, they learn how to storm a building for the first time. They practice in the ruins of a farm outbuilding, sticking their rifles through empty doors before cautiously sneaking past.

Some manage to appear more convincing than others, but the women’s commitment and focus are clear – because their reasons for doing so are deep and personal.

“I remember the crew. I remember the horror. I remember my own child’s screams,” Valentyna tells me with small sighs. “I remember the bodies when we escaped.”

Her family escaped Bucha, past burned-out tanks, dead soldiers and civilians. At a Russian checkpoint, she said a soldier forced her to roll down the car window and then held a gun to her son’s head.

She is filled with quiet rage.

This is also the reason why Walentyna continues to believe in Ukraine’s victory, despite the gloom that has descended on large parts of her country after almost 1,000 days of full-scale war.

“Life has changed, all our plans have been disrupted. But I’m here to hasten the end of this war. As our girls here say: It won’t end without us.”

Office manager Anya, another volunteer witch, crunches over broken glass and debris in army boots and rifle in hand. She is now 52 and finds military training enriching.

“Under the occupation I felt the complete meaninglessness of my existence. I couldn’t help anyone or defend myself. I wanted to learn how to handle weapons so I could be of use.”

There is a lot of feedback from the trainers: the women are having fun. But later that night, at their base in the forest, one of them opens up even more and tells a scary story.

When Bucha was taken, Russian forces began moving from house to house. They raped and murdered. Then one day a rumor spread that the occupiers were coming to kill the children.

“I will never forgive the Russians for the decision I made that day,” this woman admits.

I won’t reveal the details of what she told me – the extreme decision she made – only that the soldiers never came and she never had to respond to them. But this woman has been haunted by that moment and by guilt ever since.

She first felt relief when she began to defend herself, her family and her country.

“It really helped coming here,” she tells me quietly. “Because I will never sit like a victim and be so afraid again.”