The Ukrainian helicopter, returning from a mission firing rockets at Russian troops, swooped in low over a forest of birch trees and touched down in a clearing in a cloud of dust.
The door opened, and the pilot emerged, blinking away the dust with mascaraed eyelashes, her nails manicured a deep burgundy. She was carrying a heavy flight jacket over one arm, and a member of the ground crew rushed over to her to help her with it.
“Let me carry it,” he said, but she waved him off. If I can land a helicopter, her body language suggested, I don’t need help with my jacket.
“Guys always want to show that they’re heroes and protect you,” the pilot, a senior lieutenant named Kateryna, said in an interview later. “But I didn’t come here to be a girl. At some point, our army will get it.”
Ukraine, now in the fourth year of all-out war with Russia, is facing an urgent need for more soldiers, and after years of reluctance, is stepping up efforts to get more women to serve.
The military has started recruitment campaigns for women and gender equality training courses for commanders as part of that effort. Since the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022, the number of women in the armed forces has increased by 20 per cent, according to the ministry of defence.
But many women say that many impediments remain and that sexism is common within the ranks.
About 70,000 women are serving in the Ukrainian military, of whom just 5,500 are in combat positions. Lieutenant Kateryna is the only female combat pilot in the Ukrainian military, the military says, serving at a forward helicopter base with dozens of male pilots. Ukraine does not allow the last names of pilots to be publicised as a security precaution.
“I would love more women to fly,” said Lieutenant Kateryna, adding that she had been the only woman among 45 men in her military flight school.
She said that very few women were studying to be pilots at Kharkiv National Air Force University, the country’s leading military aviation institution, but that six had reached out to her on Instagram for advice. “I try to encourage them and tell them that they will make it,” she said. The university said it was not authorised to disclose how many women were studying to be pilots.
Ukraine’s government passed a law allowing women to serve in combat roles in 2018, four years after Russia first attacked eastern Ukraine.
But deeply rooted stereotypes among male commanders and rank-and-file soldiers remain difficult to overcome, and women tend to be marginalised and underutilised in the armed forces, Lieutenant Kateryna and activists say.
As a combat pilot, Lieutenant Kateryna says she has bonded with the other soldiers on a daily basis. But, she says, she often finds her abilities doubted.
“It’s like that in any profession when you’re a woman — not just in the army,” she said.
She said she was inspired to fly growing up on an air force base, where her father served as an officer. She was given a ride in a Mi-8 helicopter when she was 10, and decided she wanted to become a pilot. “It was so loud and so scary, but I felt that I wanted to fly it,” she said.
When, at 16, she entered Kharkiv National Air Force University as the only female student, she said a teacher asked her: “What are you doing here? This is not for girls. You will not make it.” A female instructor on helicopter simulators inspired her to carry on, she said. “She told me not to listen to anyone, and I thought, if she can fly, why can’t I?”
She joined the 18th Separate Brigade of Army Aviation in 2023 and began flying combat missions last September. Lieutenant Kateryna is a co-pilot and navigator on an Mi-8, a heavy, powerful Soviet-era machine with mostly manual controls, and has flown more than 30 combat missions.
A mission last week began at 6am. Lieutenant Kateryna braided her blond hair into two tight braids that ran along her head, curved around her ears, and hung down over her shoulders. “So the hair doesn’t bother me,” she said.
She put on the male military uniform she wears, as the army doesn’t provide uniforms made for women. She picked up a tablet computer that she uses for navigating and stepped outside. Her crew, more than a dozen men, were already there, smoking and having coffee.
They discussed the route, which Lieutenant Kateryna had prepared in advance for a three-helicopter mission, then walked to their aircraft, hidden in a forest to protect against Russian missile attacks.
Lieutenant Kateryna put on her helmet, made herself comfortable in the seat, and with her right hand gripped the cyclic stick, and with her left, the throttle lever.
Her commander, a 26-year-old captain named Andriy, pressed the start button. Lieutenant Kateryna checked the navigation instruments. A few seconds later, the helicopter was in the air and flew off towards the front.
The helicopters fly very low, at an altitude of 30 to 45 feet, popping over power lines and trees. Two helicopters fly ahead and a third behind. Close to the front, the third helicopter gains altitude and serves as a kind of retransmitting radio station for the leading two, which fire volleys of rockets at Russian targets.
This aircraft is known as the radio relay helicopter, which Lieutenant Kateryna pilots. Although it remains farther back than the striking helicopters, it is often in greater danger because of the higher altitude.
Lieutenant Kateryna led the striking helicopters to the target and then sharply turned back after the rockets were fired. As the helicopters returned to the forest clearing, birds fluttered up in alarm, and then three machines landed, safe after another mission.