- 21:30,
WOMEN in Ukraine who have taken up arms to defeat Vladimir Putin yesterday told the tyrant: “You’ve killed our children — now you will pay.”
Female soldiers are among frontline troops fighting Russian forces in the east of the war-torn country.
And thousands more in civvy street are going through weapons training to learn how to fire AK-47 assault rifles.
Others have put their lives on hold to make camouflage nets and help care for the 2.3 million refugees driven from their homes.
It is an incredible effort by all, and one which the women are confident will contribute to defeating invading Russian troops.
Officials this week issued photos of some of the female soldiers in frontline units to mark International Women’s Day.
One, who has been serving in the battle-scarred east told The Sun: “Of course women are absolutely on the front line all over the east of Ukraine.
“They are fighting alongside men and are seeing combat action all of the time.”
In Lviv in the far west, women such as 33-year-old Kate Matchyshyn had never dreamed of joining the Army, but are now learning basic weapons training including how to fire, reload and clean an AK-47.
A couple of weeks ago her main daily concern was building up her massage therapy business but she has now been put through her paces at a female-run centre for veterans called Warriors House.
She said: “Of course I am scared to have to train so I am capable of killing someone.
“It is a very hard thing for a woman to kill and I never thought that I would ever have to do it. But we have been forced to train for such a terrible thing by Russia.
“Russians are killing Ukrainian children so Ukrainian women will do what they have to do to protect them.
“We are the same as women anywhere in the world. All women have a protective instinct towards children and we will show that every day.
“Ukrainian women are strong — my main hobby for example is boxing — and Putin will find out just how strong. He has killed our children and so we will make him pay.”
Around 40 locals go through the weapons training each day at the centre where businesswoman Bohdana Ostapyk, 23, helps co-ordinate the sessions.
Before the war she ran her own successful PR firm in Kyiv with 14 clients in the agricultural machinery business.
But the company has collapsed with all but one of her clients ditching their contracts and she has moved back home to Lviv to help the war effort.
She said: “The war might end in a few weeks or it might go on for years and if that is the case every single person needs to know how to use a weapon — including women.”
Lviv may be a long way from the front line but locals fear the war is moving their way.
Air raid sirens sounded repeatedly yesterday after Russian troops bombed two airports around three hours drive away.
Despite their concern, Lviv’s women refuse to be cowed.
In a 16th century former gunpowder store known locally as the Powder Tower, 25-year-old university lecturer Bohdana Symiakevych is co-ordinating an operation on an industrial scale to make camouflage nets.
She is in charge of 500 volunteers who sort tons of material donated by factories, tear them into 2in-wide strips and then tie them on to plastic garden netting to make 40ft by 6ft nets which the Army uses to hide machinery.
Bohdana said: “We make around 30 nets in a day. This is a really difficult time for the country but all Ukrainians will be strong. We can be strong because we have the support of the rest of the world.
“And I want to thank the United Kingdom for leading the world in that support.”
Despite the daily trauma Ukrainians now have to deal with, they still manage to maintain a sense of humour.
Bohdana added: “We have a joke that when the war is over and we have won we are going to go on holiday — to Crimea.”
Putin’s Russia annexed the Ukrainian peninsula on the Black Sea in 2014.
Over at the concert hall in Lviv classical music events and business conferences are cancelled for the foreseeable future.
Instead it has become a regional hub for aid with 100 tons of donated food, clothes and medicines arriving daily.
Security is tight. Locals are paranoid about Russian saboteurs and it took The Sun team 20 minutes to clear security.
Once inside we found every room piled high with items given for the benefit of the two million-plus refugees driven from their homes by the invasion.
Married mum Natalia Dovhaliuk, 52, is one of 600 volunteers who work round the clock sorting aid into boxes to be shipped to thousands of refugee camps which have sprung up in Ukraine and neighbouring countries.
As she sorted gloves, hats and scarves into boxes in the main auditorium, she said: “We are at war so how could I sit at home and watch the television?
“I had to do something so I come here every day.
“I believe with all of my heart that Ukraine will win the war.
“And when we do it will be down to the bravery of the soldiers but also thanks to the women of Ukraine who’ve done so much to help in many ways.”
Help those fleeing conflict with The Sun’s Ukraine Fund
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