INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Karina does not tell her mother she is going to the front
Iana uses social media to try and raise the morale at home.On another day of war in eastern Ukraine, the three are resting with their unit
in a village before another rotation.They agree to talk about their lives on the front line of a war they were not expecting, which has
region in eastern Ukraine where fighting is raging.The 29-year-old comes from Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, and had just graduated from an
army academy when the war broke out
Her role is to provide the troops with moral and psychological support.After speaking about the "satisfactory" morale among soldiers and the
justness of Ukraine's cause, she talks more personally about life on the front."The hardest thing for them is losing comrades," she said.For
Kateryna, it is being able to distance herself from the soldiers' horrific stories."They talk more easily with me because there are a lot of
remembers one day, May 28, when 11 soldiers were killed and around 20 went missing
In the chaos of war, some troops disappear and nobody knows what has happened to them.Kateryna's own greatest fear is being kidnapped by
said "no longer exists."'Keeping up morale'On social media, Iana Pazdrii plays on the stereotypes of being a soldier, showing off her
perfectly manicured nails as she drives an armoured vehicle or clutches a Kalashnikov.The 35-year-old has been fighting since the start of
the invasion in Ukraine and, like all her comrades, has not seen her child for five months."I volunteered because I am a patriot and I felt
I could be useful here and I am," said Iana, who speaks of the army as "a family."Whenever she has time, she posts little glimpses of
military life on Instagram or TikTok."Some soldiers have to live on 'line zero' under shelling," she said, using a term frequently used in
Ukraine for the front line."I try to show that we are keeping up morale despite everything, to tell people not to be afraid and that the
army is doing everything to defend the country."But to be honest, it's hard sometimes."Dozens of soldiers are killed every day on Ukraine's
eastern front, where Russian forces made major advances in May and June, taking over almost the whole of the Lugansk region.Since then, the
front line has moved little, but ruthless artillery battles between the two sides have intensified.'Line zero'Karina, a former textile
worker of Tajik origin who signed up to the army in 2020 on a two-year contract, drives her armoured vehicle back and forth from the front
line."When we are in position, it's hard thinking about fellow soldiers, hoping that nobody will be killed or wounded, that you yourself
"nobody tells me what to do."When Karina calls her mother, she said: "I don't tell her I'm at line zero and she pretends to believe
I think I deserve it," she smiled.
