'It's scary - but so's giving birth': The female unit gunning down Russian drones

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

There are more drones to shoot down, too, often launched from Russia in waves to overwhelm the main defences ahead of a missile strike.

The night-time shifts allow the women to combine their work defending their country with day jobs as teachers, doctors - there’s even a manicurist.

Many say it’s a way of overcoming the powerlessness they felt when Russian forces occupied Bucha region at the start of the full-scale invasion.

The horror stories of those weeks – including of killing, torture and abduction – only began to emerge after Ukrainian forces freed the area at the end of March 2022.

Air raids and ancient weapons

“I’m 51, I weigh 100kg, I can’t run. I thought they’d send me packing, but they took me on!” Valentyna recalls, a veterinarian who signed up with the drone-busters this summer and now goes by the callsign Valkyrie.

She talks about friends deployed to the front, and others who’ve died in the fighting, as part of what brought her to this role.

“I can do this work. The kit’s heavy, but we women can do it.”

Valentyna gets to demonstrate that a few hours later as an air alert is activated across the region.

Her unit scramble from their base in the woods, and we follow their pick-up truck through the darkness as it bumps towards the middle of a field. The team of four jump out to begin mounting their weapons.

The machine-guns are from another era: two Maxims made in 1939, ammunition boxes stamped with red stars from Soviet days.

Serhiy, the only man on the team, has to pour in bottled water by hand as a coolant.

This is all that’s available: Ukraine’s best kit is at the frontline, and it is constantly asking its allies for more.

But the ancient weapons are impeccably maintained and the Witches say they’ve downed three drones since the summer.

The women - and their one male colleague, Serhiy - operate with a machine gun mounted on the back of a pick-up truck

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

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

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

A maths teacher, she occasionally has to rush back from the woods to take a class.

“I keep my clothes in the car. My heels. I put on some lipstick, teach the lesson. Then it’s back in the car, quick change round the corner and I’m off.”

“The guys have gone, but we’re here. What can’t Ukrainian women do? We can do everything.”

"It’s scary, yes. But so’s giving birth": Inna serves with the team and works as a maths teacher

Somewhere on the horizon is a beam of light from another group, scouring the skies for danger over their own patrol zone.

There’s no public data on the total number of volunteer units – or how many women are involved. But as Russia sends drones packed with explosives almost every night, they help form an extra shield around big towns and cities.

From the Witches’ position in a field, Yulia tracks two drones on her tablet. They’re over the neighbouring region, so there's no imminent danger for Bucha, but the machine guns will stay in place until the alert ends.

No men left

The volunteers’ commander is a big bear of a man, just back from Pokrovsk in the eastern Donbas region where the fighting is fiercest.

“There are fireworks, non-stop," is how Andriy Verlaty describes it there, with a smile.

He used to have around 200 men operating mobile air defence units in the Bucha region and patrolling during the nightly curfew, many of them unfit for full military service.

Then Ukraine overhauled its mobilisation law, in urgent need of more soldiers, and many of the colonel’s crew suddenly found themselves eligible for the frontline.

Col Andriy Verlatyy says there wasn't much trust in women in the armed forces, but that has changed over time

“About 90% of my men ended up in the army and another 10% hid, scattering like rats. We were left with barely anyone,” Col Verlaty says bluntly. “Just men with no legs, or half a skull missing.”

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

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

Taking back control

The Witches spend their weekends undergoing a broader military training. On the day we visit, it’s their first lesson on storming a building. They practice in the ruins of a farm outhouse, poking rifles round empty doorways before edging warily past.

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

“I remember the occupation. I remember the horror. I remember the screams of my own child,” Valentyna tells me, through small sighs. “I remember the dead bodies, when we were fleeing.”

Her family escaped Bucha past burned out tanks, dead soldiers and civilians. At one Russian checkpoint she says a soldier made them wind down the car window, then put a gun to her son’s head.

She is filled with quiet fury.

That’s also why Valentyna refuses to stop believing in Ukraine’s victory, despite the gloom that has settled over much of her country after almost 1,000 days of full-scale war.

“Life has changed, all our plans have been torn apart. But I’m here to help speed up the end of this war. As our girls here say, it won’t end without us.”

Crunching over broken glass and rubble in army boots, rifle in hand, office manager Anya is another volunteer Witch. Now 52, she finds the military training empowering.

“Under occupation, I felt the utter pointlessness of my existence. I could neither help anyone else, nor defend myself. I wanted to learn how to use weapons, so I could be some use.”

There’s a lot of backchat with the trainers: the women are enjoying themselves. But later that night, at their base in the woods, one of them opens up even more and shares a chilling story.

When Bucha was taken over, Russian forces began going house to house. They raped and they murdered. Then one day, a rumour spread that the occupiers were coming to kill the children.

“For the decision I took that day, I will never forgive the Russians,” this woman confides.

I won’t share the details of what she told me – the extreme decision she took – only that the soldiers never came and she never had to act on it. But this woman has been haunted by that moment ever since, and by guilt.

The first time she felt relief was when she began learning to defend herself, her family and her country.

“Coming here really helped,” she tells me quietly. “Because I won’t ever sit like a victim again and be so very afraid.”

-BBC