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Putin calls off mobilization of college students in two annexed regions of Ukraine, Russia state media says
Andrii Kolesnyk and Kseniia Drahanyuk each beam with pleasure as they crouch over a field.
They’re about to unpack Ukraine’s first ever army uniform for pregnant girls, which they not too long ago commissioned after a pregnant sniper obtained in contact.
The younger couple, each TV journalists earlier than the conflict began, at the moment are absolutely devoted to their impartial NGO, “Zemlyachki,” or “Compatriots,” which procures important gadgets for girls within the armed forces.
The initiative began when Andrii’s sister was despatched to the entrance on Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine.
“She acquired males’s uniform, males’s underwear,” he mentioned. “Every thing that (was) designed for males.”
It quickly grew to become clear that servicewomen wanted much more than uniforms. Every thing from smaller boots to lighter plates for bulletproof vests to hygiene merchandise is in demand.
So, the couple turned to personal firm donations, charity funds and crowdfunding to buy items independently of the army. Some personalized gear, reminiscent of girls’s fatigues, is produced underneath their very own model by a manufacturing unit in Kharkiv within the nation’s east — together with the brand new being pregnant uniform.
Different gadgets, together with physique armor plates, helmets and boots, come from corporations as far afield as Sweden, Macedonia and Turkey. However Kolesnyk and Drahanyuk say they’re battling the procurement of winter gadgets like sleeping baggage and thermal clothes that will probably be essential for consolation as winter units in.
Kolesnyk mentioned they’ve distributed gear price $1 million to this point and helped at the very least 3,000 girls. In the event that they’re on the frontline taking pictures rockets they could as properly do it “in minimal consolation,” he tells CNN.
There are at present about 38,000 girls within the armed forces, in accordance with the nation’s Ministry of Protection.
“We’re doing this to assist our authorities,” Kolesnyk mentioned, to not compete with it. Their hub is overflowing with cardboard packing containers stuffed with equipment, all paid for from crowdfunding and grants.
A bodily incapacity prevents Kolesnyk from becoming a member of his sister, father and brother-in-law on the frontline, a undeniable fact that saddens him.
“For a person, it’s arduous to grasp which you could’t go there, and your sister is there. So, I’m making an attempt to do my finest right here to assist not solely my household, however the entire military,” he mentioned.
Twenty-one-year-old Roksolana, who gave solely her first title for safety causes, walks in to select up a uniform and different gear earlier than heading out on her subsequent project. An artwork faculty graduate, she joined the military in March and is now a part of an intelligence unit.
“It’s so useful to have these individuals who perceive that we’re uninterested in carrying garments which can be three sizes too large,” she mentioned. “We had no helmets, we had outdated flak jackets, wore tracksuits and sneakers. Now we really feel that we’re people.”
She giggles as she laces up her new boots with impeccable lengthy fingernails. Earlier than they hug goodbye, Drahanyuk palms Roksolana a duplicate of “The Alternative,” the best-selling memoir by Holocaust survivor and psychologist Edith Eger. The goal is that this could be a software to assist course of trauma. Zemlyachki has additionally fashioned partnerships with army psychologists to whom girls in fight can attain out.
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