How female volunteers from Bucha Territorial Defence Forces destroy Shahed drones with Maxim machine guns

A woman's laughter echoes after gathering at the assembly point near the city of Kyiv. "Well, girls? Ready for a barbecue?"

"Yeah," replies Yuliia, aka "Spinning Top", replies jokingly. "In pixelated swimsuits."

"Pack your things, take your passports, get the children out," were the words Yuliia heard in the beauty salon she worked in Kyiv on the morning of 24 February 2022. Spinning Top left Kyiv on the fourth day of the full-scale invasion. She ended up in Poland but came back three months later.

"I really wanted to go home," she says. "Now, I can't even explain why I left in the first place. It was a spontaneous decision, probably driven by emotions. I wanted to protect my child's mental health.

But it feels much worse there than at home." After coming back to Ukraine, Yuliia put on earrings shaped like the Mriia aircraft destroyed in Hostomel and joined the Bucha Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces. There, she became the commander of one of the mobile fire groups that shot down Russian drones and missiles.

The Bucha Witches and Valkyries, the names given to the women's air defence groups in the Bucha Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces, have already taken down several Shahed drones and hit North Korean ballistic missiles. In this article, Ukrainska Pravda tells the story of the sky defenders and shows how they work.

Olena, with the call sign Baby

Olena, a general practitioner in the reception department of a clinic in Bucha, was returning from Odesa this June, where she had celebrated her 26th birthday.

While her friend Anhelina skillfully drove her Mazda (they reached the capital in just four hours), Olena saw an invitation on Instagram to join the Bucha Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces. That's how the girls ended up among the Witches mobile group's volunteers.

There's a sticker on Olena's body armour that says Baby. Asking why she got this nickname is unnecessary.

Her quiet, even voice carries a lot of adolescent tenderness. But Baby's tone doesn't matter while on combat missions as loud machine guns take over.

Olena: My goal is to ensure that folk sleep peacefully. I dream about the end of the war and that everyone comes back from the front lines and captivity.

Olena is originally from the city of Lviv.

She moved to her sister's house in Kyiv in 2023. She found a job in Bucha in her field. "I've long wanted to join the defence forces," she says. "I have many patients, so I didn't have the opportunity to combine work with service.

But I found it in the Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces." Olena's family consists of many military personnel. Her great-grandfather served in the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists and her great-grandmother was a liaison officer for them.

Her godfather began taking Baby to the shooting range when she was just five years old. "Here at the training centre, they let me fire a Browning heavy machine gun. I hit eleven aerial targets using just 25 rounds.

High accuracy, low ammunition expenditure. Seeing that, the commander said, 'You'll be a machine gunner!'," the medic smiles.

The girls load the machine guns before heading to their combat positions; each weighs 25 kilograms.

Each mobile group includes several women performing different roles: driver, machine gunner with an assistant, person who adjusts fire and someone to cover the group while they down aerial targets.

Ten shots per second, six hundred per minute, 7.62 millimetres calibre. The Maxim gun used by the Valkyries and Witches might seem like outdated weapons to those ignoramuses.

"Many make fun of it, but I want to explain something: they are quite effective," says 51-year-old Colonel Andrii Verlatyi, the chief of staff of the Bucha Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces. "They have good shooting accuracy. And most importantly, they don't overheat." "We use paired Maxim guns," Colonel Verlatyi continues. "The machine gunner and her assistant change the ammunition belts in seconds, one after the other.

The weapon operates almost non-stop, accurately destroying enemy equipment. Two of three Shahed drones have been downed using Maxim guns this month alone. One was downed with a Degtyaryov-Shpagin large-calibre machine gun."

Valentyna, aka Valkyrie

An explosion.

Grey and black smoke can be seen. Volunteers in a forest near Kyiv show us the effects of an electric method for detonating plastic explosives. "Wow!

Just twenty grams, but so loud," marvels Valentyna, aka Valkyrie. "Imagine if a Shahed explodes!" "If it falls and doesn't explode, don't even try to approach it," the instructor warns. "You need to secure the area. Shahed could contain up to 50 kilograms of explosives on board.

If it goes off, there'd be hell to pay."

Valkyrie from the Bucha Valkyries group: "We have great instructors who have been on the line of contact. We trust them completely."

Valentyna, a vet, faced the Russian occupation in February 2022 trapped in her home near the city of Bucha. She saw Russian helicopters and aircraft, heard the bombing of Hostomel Airport and the attacks on Bucha and Irpin.

She was fortunate enough to escape the encirclement three weeks later, leaving with seven others in one car. "We were only able to take the dog. Three cats were left at home," Valkyrie recalls. "While there were no people on our street, all the cats stuck together.

They roamed together. There were about a dozen of them, maybe more. When I came back, I looked at that clutter of cats.

Not one of them fought over water or food. The animals came together just like people did."

Some of the girls are not ready to show their faces on camera. The reasons vary: some haven't yet told anyone they volunteered for the Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces, while others still have relatives in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.

Setting up a machine gun on a turret takes from two to three minutes.

Valentyna joined the Bucha volunteers two months ago.

The physical demands seemed the hardest then. She smiled with satisfaction after going through the assault course twice, "I thought it was impossible. Everything was adrenalin-fueled.

What was I so afraid of?!" "My place is here," Valkyrie says confidently. "This war won't end without us. It's time to stop staying at home, in the kitchen.

We can take up arms and come to defend a piece of our land, our community. The men go to the front. We are replacing them.

And we are seeing that we can do it."

Angelina, aka Fast and Furious

Anhelina is the one friend who went to Odesa with Olia (Baby). Over a few years of driving experience, Anhelina has strengthened her confidence behind the wheel. "When our armourer and I went to the training ground one time, he joked that he lost a few kilos during the ride," Anhelina, the driver of the Witches mobile fire group, smiles. "He called me 'Fast and Furious' because I drive very fast."

Fast and Furious is from the city of Lutsk. She's an anesthesiologist and resuscitation specialist, working in Bucha in civilian life. She drives a pickup truck she calls The Broom.

Anhelina: "At first, everything here was hard as I had had nothing to do with the military.

But it becomes much easier once you acquire certain skills."

Amid explosions and the roar of Russian aircraft on the day of the full-scale invasion, Anhelina went to work. She ended up under occupation. She saw injured children, wounded civilians.

She was evacuated to Ukrainian-controlled territory with her patients when there was a "green corridor". Her boyfriend joined the infantry unit as a volunteer after the full-scale invasion. Meanwhile, she continued working in the operating theatre and signed a contract with the Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces this summer.

"My boyfriend worries a lot, but is supportive," Fast and Furious says. "He writes: 'Be careful there. Let me know you're okay right after you get back after the mission.' He always lets me go [to the Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces]. He knows we're both working for a common cause."

Right before heading to the combat position.

The crew is on standby, searching for aerial targets.

An air-raid warning is issued, you rush to the firing position, wait and shoot targets down.

Anhelina's short description of their combat routine is packed with the adrenalin the girls experience every time. "Every downed Shahed brings joy and inspiration," she explains. "The drone now won't hit someone's home. Is it hard to work at night?

It is, but I'm used to it. Yes, sometimes it's cold and damp standing in position. But it's not easy for the guys on the front lines or in captivity either."

Yuliia, aka Spinning top

"Listen carefully, ladies!" the instructor's voice rings out. "I don't need your physical strength, got it?

I need your mind to work, so you don't freeze up, understood?" During training detonations in the forest, volunteers learn where to run, how to properly fall to the ground and what position to take to protect their arteries from shrapnel. Yuliia from Kyiv, aka Spinning Top, feels at ease in training and on combat duty.

A year in the Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces and her personality traits boost her confidence.

Yulia: "I adjust fire, watch where things are coming from and what those things are. I try to stay calm to make the right decisions."

"My way of living requires me to spin around and keep up with everything," says the woman who leads the Valkyries mobile fire group. "That's why my alias is Spinning Top. When I joined up, my family and friends weren't surprised because they knew me."

"After the invasion, I thought about something like this [joining the defence forces]," Yuliia continues. "But I didn't understand how to keep up with everything, who to leave my child with. When the opportunity arose to combine civilian life with service, I joined up right away."

Yuliia: "Civilian life is much harder for me. To be among people who act as if there's no war."

The purpose that keeps Spinning Top in the Volunteer Territorial Defence is as clear as the outline of her earrings shaped like a Mriia aircraft.

"The men go to the front and we stay here, protecting the sky, our children and the civilians behind us. Could there be a greater motivation?" Spinning Top says.

Energy

Some women in the group have lost their husbands at the front, others are waiting for their loved ones to be brought back from captivity and some have survived occupation. There are many shades of grief and determination among the women of this air defence unit.

Two of the "witches" have already signed contracts with the Armed Forces. One has become the commander of a fire support platoon in an assault battalion and the other is undergoing officer training, preparing to command three multiple-launch rocket system crews. Many men from Bucha's Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces also went to the front in April 2024.

"There weren't enough people," recalls Chief of Staff Colonel Andrii Verlatyi. "We decided to involve young people, 20-25 years old guys, who cannot be called for military service. But they are a bit cowardly, unfortunately, even though they are patriotic. When they were invited, they thought that they could automatically be drafted into the army after their contract with us ended.

But it doesn't happen that way."

A fighter with the alias Mara, who joined the Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces a few weeks ago, has a tattoo of the witch from the Suicide Squad movie on her arm.

Verlatyi and the women under his command found a solution jointly. They brought their friends, and the first female mobile air defence group was formed in April. "They performed well during one of the attacks," the colonel says. "They hit a North Korean-made missile.

It crashed down. Several groups were involved and they brought down that missile with large-calibre machine guns and Maxim guns."

The Bucha Volunteer Territorial Defence Forces still has up to 70 vacant positions.Photo: Alex Klymov

They say lightning never strikes the same place twice. You cannot step into the same river twice.

But the horrific lesson Bucha learned in 2022 urges us not to trust such comforting sayings. "I see that sometimes the women who join us are more motivated than the men," Andrii Verlatyi says. "Many of them were mothers, homemakers. And then the Russians came and destroyed their lives.

They unleashed an energy that should never be touched. God forbid the Russians try to come here again! It will be a disaster for them because a Ukrainian woman is fiercer than a man."

Yevhen Rudenko, Alex Klymov (video, photo) for Ukrainska Pravda

Translated by Tetiana Buchkovska

Edited by Susan McDonald