It is the second time in four years that she has worn make-up, says Nina (33). Suddenly she had to think again about what to wear. Her Ukrainian army clothes might shock Dutch people on the street. She bought a long black officer-style coat, with gold buttons and epaulettes. She is not allowed to give her surname, which is in accordance with Ukrainian army protocol, because she is still serving. “In the past year I have forgotten my real name, I rarely use it anymore,” says Nina. Her nom de guerre is Sokil, falcon. She is in the Netherlands for the photo exhibition in Vrij Paleis behind the Amsterdam Dam.
Curator Olena Kovalenko lives in the Netherlands and was inspired by the laconic use of curtains by the Dutch. “You can look into people’s living rooms. In Ukraine we keep the curtains closed,” she says. “I would like to invite Dutch people to also take a look inside us.”
But behind the Ukrainian windows that have been set up you do not see any domestic scenes, with the dog on the couch, like along the canals. In the appropriately rugged environment of the former printing works of the Algemeen Handelsblad (predecessor of NRC) Kovalenko provides insight into women whose lives were changed by the war. Like Marina from Mariupol, who, after fleeing the Russian occupation, received a call from the invaders in her old house, asking where she had stored the blender attachments.
On the run
Or the ‘wedding invitation’ with a child’s shoe, from artist Olha, from the occupied regional capital Luhansk, who received a Chechen soldier who showed an uncanny interest in her blond, eight-year-old daughter, whom he wanted to couple with his son – which caused the woman to flee with her family. And a group of anonymous women, depicted on a stone ground, in ‘the arms’ of a white chalk outline – trying to make contact with their mobile phones.
A Ukrainian woman lost her leg during the war.
Photo Olena Diakiv
Kovalenko himself comes from Severodonetsk. Her house was destroyed by a Russian missile, causing her to lose her property. She fled to Amsterdam with two daughters in 2022. “The war has a man’s face,” she says, referring to the gender-normative stereotype that Eastern European women have been fighting against since World War II. “A man’s face, but it is driven by women’s power.”
We always want to go back, back, back
But unlike men, Ukrainian women can move back and forth between war and peace – between Ukraine and the outside world. This provides unprecedented new experiences, but also a permanent ‘split’, as Kovalenko calls it. No matter how good the school is and how intact the city, “we always want to go back, back, back.”
Drones
Nina stands next to her own portrait in the coat with gold buttons. What she found most surprising about her visit was that the Dutch are now also working on drone development. “I knew that there were Dutch consultants, but I did not expect that production also takes place here.”
She herself leads combat operations at the drone battalion ‘Birds of Madjar’. She uses unmanned aircraft to defend the border with the eastern province of Donetsk, which is largely occupied, in the hope of preventing a march into Central Europe. It is agricultural land with evacuated villages, but her team tries to repel attacks with drones.
Behind a plastic quadcopter hangs a mirror: in which the viewer can look at themselves the same way Ukrainians are looked at. Are you ready to join the fight? “Thanks to drone development on the battlefield, there have been many more opportunities for women to participate in a combat position,” says Nina.
A day after the war broke out, Nina was ready at the recruitment office in her home town, Shostka, 45 kilometers from the Russian border. In the first three years she was a volunteer with the Territorial Defense Forces – she mainly helped in the rearguard, but after two years she trained as a drone pilot. She started recruiting for her own team – which she trained
She doesn’t see an end to the war yet. “The Russian war machine is running and cannot be stopped anymore. If Ukraine capitulates, the people left on the territory will become part of the Russian army that will invade Europe,” says Nina. According to the Ukrainian human rights organization, Russia has already mobilized three hundred thousand men from occupied territory and turned them against their own country.
From the bus back to Ukraine – the airspace is still closed – Sokil texts. “I wish the road was faster, I’m rushing back to my team, I miss them so much.” The war does have a woman’s face.
The journalistic principles of NRC