'Women need to be ready': the Ukrainian city where mums and daughters are learning to shoot

‘Women need to be ready’: the Ukrainian city where mums and daughters are learning to shoot

Reports of rape and torture by occupying Russian forces have driven thousands of women in Ivano-Frankivsk to enrol in firearms classes


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Women practise with rifles in the basement of Litsey 20, one of the largest schools in Ivano-Frankivsk. Photograph: Pavlo Pyvovar

In the long, narrow basement underneath Litsey 20, a school in Ivano-Frankivsk, western Ukraine, Serhiy Korneliyevych Hamchuk stands before a row of women and lays a Kalashnikov assault rifle down on the desk in front of him. The 10 women, aged between 18 and 51, watch attentively as Hamchuk demonstrates how to load ammunition into the gun’s magazine, sliding the bullets into place one after another with his thumb. “Dobre,” he says. “Good. Who wants to try?” The concrete walls of Litsey 20, one of the largest schools in Ivano-Frankivsk, are normally filled with the chatter of more than 1,200 students aged between six and 18. But with in-person teaching banned across Ukraine because of the war, the school is providing a different sort of education.

At the end of March, the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, one of the largest cities in western Ukraine, announced that shooting ranges at five schools in the city – normally used by pupils in the Ukrainian equivalent of the Combined Cadet Force – would be reopened in order to teach civilians how to use firearms. Although open to all, the courses are primarily aimed at women.
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Serhiy Korneliyevych Hamchuk watches as a woman takes her turn using the rifle. Photograph: Pavlo Pyvovar

“There are other institutions where men can train, but these are special courses organised for women,” Ruslan Martsinkiv, the city’s mayor, says. “Women have to be ready to protect themselves and their families.”
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The first lesson was held on 31 March, the day Ukrainian forces liberated Bucha, a suburb north-west of the capital, Kyiv. In the days that followed, as reports of war crimes committed by Russian soldiers circulated in the media and on Telegram channels – of the killing of civilians with their hands tied behind their backs, of rape, torture and looting – thousands of women rushed to sign up. Over the first weekend, more than 3,700 women enrolled, with 800 men also registering their interest. In the weeks since, thousands more have signed up, and there is now a waitlist of more than 6,300 women who want to learn how to shoot.

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/apr/25/women-need-to-be-ready-the-ukrainian-city-where-mums-and-daughters-are-learning-to-shoot