Illustrated by Daria Borodenko
Yevhenia Zakrevska, a lawyer, is 38 years old. She joined the Territorial Defense in advance. She knew that she would defend Kyiv if a full-scale war broke out. “I’ve been training with the Defense for several months, and if anything happened, I knew where to go and what to do,” she said. It came true: as soon as the Russian invasion began in Ukraine, Yevhenia joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine to defend Kyiv.
For the past seven years, she has been an attorney for the Heavenly Hundred families, people shot during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. On February 24, she was to go to court for a preparatory hearing in the case of the Zaporizhzhya Berkut members. She still had to pass a medical commission to obtain a firearms license—her law firm had planned a corporate shooting training.
When the Russian offensive began, Yevhenia regretted that she had not done enough to prepare. “The first emotion was hatred! Then I started doing something like an inventory of what had and hadn’t been done. Hell, why haven’t I bought a walkie-talkie and a first aid kit yet? ” she recalls.
With the second wave of explosions in the Kyiv area, where Yevhenia lives, the light went out. But she was still ready to go to court. However, the prosecutor wrote to her that there would be no meeting. And then messages started pouring into the chats: the Darnytsia court had canceled all hearings, the Desnianskyi, Shevchenkivskyi court… Then Yevhenia went to the Territorial Defense headquarters.
Since 2014, she periodically underwent different drills, medical training sessions, went to the shooting range and the firing fields to practice, trained with the Territorial Defense. She can shoot and has the basic tactical medicine skills, she is physically fit.
“We practice every day. I try not to miss training, it keeps me in shape. We go for tours of duty, arrange positions and routine. As I see it, war is 80% logistics. From the point of view of management, a unit is something in between a children’s camp and a public organization. There is no special distribution of tasks by gender here, it is functional. However, girls are assigned for tours of duty less frequently, they spare us,” says Yevhenia.
Someone organizes the processes, logistics. Those who have combat experience or instructor skills conduct classes, trainings. Some are in contact with volunteers, some organize lunches.
“My mood right now is healthy anger. I feel like I am as much in the right place as possible. Maximum ‘here and now.’”
” I’m where I need to be. I do what I have to do. I hope that I’m doing it effectively,” says Yevhenia. “The support of relatives, friends, colleagues, acquaintances and strangers is very satisfying. From all over Ukraine, including the Crimea, from all around the world. Even from Belarus and Russian prisons. From distant Ararat, the Czech Republic, Norway, Poland, the USA… My parents are safe. I am calm.”
She admits that the constant proposals to evacuate somewhere, because “it’s definitely necessary” and “it’s definitely dangerous,” are a bit infuriating. “We are here precisely because it is dangerous. To prevent danger. Defend Kyiv. Instead of taking pictures with machine guns while it’s safe and there is no shooting. Well, for the military in general, it is no longer evacuation but desertion. We signed a contract and took an oath.”
When asked what she will do after the victory, Yevhenia Zakrevska answers: “I plan to swim in Laspі (a bay on the Crimean coast). Then go up to Chatyr-Dag and drink coffee there.”
