How YouTube taught a female ex-sniper to stuff a sausage and milk goats

Ukrainian article of the week published in the 41st edition of the "What about Ukraine" newsletter on August 15th, 2024. The article was written by Natalia Mazina for Hromadske and was translated for n-ost by Natalia Volynets.

Ex-sniper Yulia Matvienko from Zaporizhzhia recently turned 45. We spoke with her the day after her father’s death. Only at the end of our conversation, did she tell us about her recent loss.

“We could have postponed the talk...” I remark awkwardly.

“No, this is the way to distract myself so that I don't go crazy. It worked well when at war, and it does now — you just delve into work. You then don't think about the many things breaking your heart.”

“Who do you love more: your kids or Ukraine?”

In 2015, Yulia’s first contact with war was as a volunteer. Both she and her husband would help locate bodies for the relatives of the deceased.

“My military journey started with PTSD: I was scared to even pick up the phone, afraid to say that someone was gone. And then I saw the dead. Not on TV, but next to me,” says Yulia.

Then the separatist forces, backed by the Russian army, came deeper into Donetsk and Luhansk.

“Our forces retreated from Ilovaisk and Debaltseve,” explains Yulia. “Zaporizhzhia was not that far.

“And that’s my home and my children. I felt I couldn’t sit and wait — I had to do something, as our people were dying. All I could do to help them was to stand next to them and shoot.”

So, she left eight-year-old Yaroslav and six-year-old Zlata with her parents. Her husband signed up first, and then she joined the military. As time passed, her daughter would accuse her: “Why did you abandon us at such a small age? I needed a mother.”

Yulia did not know what to say. How could she explain to her children that she loves Ukraine? Did that mean that she loves them less?

Because of the fear that the war would come into her home and affect her children, she went to Shyrokyne and persuaded the commander of the Zaporizhzhia battalion to take her to fight.

“I wanted to become feared”

The intelligence head then told the commander: “Don't hire a woman! They only bring problems! Why the hell take her?”

However, the officer replied with a phrase for which Yulia still feels grateful: “I know her from the Maidan. If she says she’ll be a sniper, she will. I believe her!”

But why a sniper?

“I didn't want to have to cook borscht,” Yulia admits. She needed a cast-iron reason for why she abandoned her children.

Meanwhile, she heard about Russian female snipers arriving on the other side of the front. The news did not please the Ukrainian soldiers.

“They were cautious about this news. Snipers are generally credited with many mystical traits, more so women!” the female veteran cheers up.

“They are said to be cunning, elusive and mysterious. So our fighters got more careful when going out. And then I thought that I myself wanted to be the one who was feared.”

But the path to this status was long. The headquarters refused to hire her and other women for combat positions, as a woman “shouldn't lift more than 12 kg” and “where will you girls get separate rooms in trenches?” And as for hygiene? No, this was not possible at any rate.

Later, when on 8 March then-President Petro Poroshenko awarded the female sniper and her female combat assistant at the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the Orders of Courage.

During the ceremony, the combat assistant, who trained as a surgeon, made the point that Yulia had to register as a nurse, and she as a seamstress, in order to join the army, due to the prejudice that existed at the time. This was despite the fact that male veterinarians were able to save the wounded, while she, as a surgeon, could not,

But the then commanding officer of the Armed Forces Viktor Muzhenko immediately intervened: “Not now girls.”

However, they could not be stopped. Yulia Matvienko starred in a film initiated by the queen of aerial intelligence, Maria Berlinska. Called ‘Invisible Battalion’, the documentary follows six female combat soldiers fighting on the front lines in the ATO zone. One of its goals was to change gender stereotypes so that it could be easier for women to see themselves in the Defence Forces. The film was also shown in the USA and Canada.

However prejudices still existed.

“During WWII, women proved they could do everything: there were female snipers, pilots and scouts. Several decades later, we are again told to cook,” Yulia Matvienko, farmer and former sniper.

Yulia had already been fighting for a year and a half, when she had to go to sniper courses to get a ‘proof’ of her skill— this was the price for women being admitted to combat positions.

“We threw ourselves into this gender war, into advocacy campaigns, into ‘assaults’ of the General Staff. We were told that even generals could do nothing, that the legislation had to be changed. And so — it was changed!”

But it took even longer to prove to the men at the front line that Bilka (her nickname, which means Squirrel’) has “cooler balls than some of them.”

“You have to be three times better than a male soldier,” she laments, recalling those times. “You can't cry, you can’t complain that something hurts. Otherwise, years later, you’ll be reminded of that.

“And a man, no matter how bad an ‘avatar’ he might be, will be forgiven everything, because he is wearing pants.”

“I do not think of the numbers I killed, but the numbers I saved”

We are talking on the phone. I can hear Yulia smoking, going somewhere, then answering someone. She is always busy, but never loses the thread of our conversation.

She recalls how she learned to shoot. Usually, a sniper is trained for six months. She learned while the war was ongoing. Masters of high-precision sports shooting and demobilised soldiers volunteered to instruct her.

“We were trained harshly to match the ‘had to be done by yesterday’ formula. The coaches ‘skinned’ us alive. We even fainted. Sometimes, having crawled through a burdock field and then crossed a river, you had no skin on your elbows. They were smeared with brilliant green, but this fell away — and the blood started pouring out.

“Your shoulder was blue from 200–300 shots a day, your whole body ached badly, but you still smiled — though the pain was so strong that you felt nothing. But you couldn't cry, for you'd be called a wimp.”

When Yulia suffered deeply and wanted to howl, she came up with the idea of ​​singing through the pain. The lyrics and melody of ‘Byla mene maty berezovym prutom ( My mother beat me with a birch rod)’ helped her for years.

With a laugh, she recalls she was once firing at a target from a shelter, and a projectile flew close to her. Her comrades did not know whether she was affected or not, and whether they should help her, for running in the middle of the battle is not a good idea. Suddenly, they heard the quiet sound of ‘Byla mene maty berezovym prutom’ and they could breathe easily: she was alive.

I carefully say: “May I inquire about one specific feature of your work?”

Yulia comes back with: “Don't ask how many I killed. I can't stand being asked that. One Catholic priest got particularly interested, but I told him: ‘I’m honest before you and God.’ I try not to think about this. I'm thinking about those I saved.”

I want to ask something different.

“Do the direction of wind and the speed of the Earth's rotation affect a sniper's work?”

Yulia laughs: “They do. Still, every sniper can take this into account and learn to shoot accurately. Psychology is also important in this job.”

“The top skill is to work against an enemy sniper,” she says. “War is the art of deception; here, it matters who will outwit the rival, such as: how can three of our soldiers take ten of them prisoner?”

“Who needs our four children?”

War both unites and separates people. After 14 years of marriage, Yulia divorced her husband. He says he has found a calmer woman who does not run to the frontline.

In Yulia’s life too, another man appeared, although she believed the war was not the place for relationships. In 2019, Yulia realised she was pregnant. She resigned from service and returned home. Now, her twins Zoriana and Bohdan are four years old. Arthur, the husband, is at war.

They had a short period of time when they were all together. They bought a house since Yulia “was used to living under a bush, under a tree, in a field — on the ground”. They added some chickens to feed the children. A neighbour was selling a goat for UAH 300, so why not buy it? Piglets appeared. The couple learned to milk a goat, butcher chickens, and stuff a sausage from YouTube videos. When they bought an incubator, their number of chickens increased. Some of them were sold.

The woman thought about her own business only when she won a 1,000 euro grant from the International Organisation for Migration. An acquaintance who sold them feed offered them a farm: “Look, this is abandoned. Want to buy it? You can pay off the debt with meat.”

She agreed, because she used to keep chickens in sheds and garages and a small but equipped farm would be an improvement. With a grant, she bought cages, and so it all started. Yulia and Arthur, who retired from the army in the autumn of 2021, worked day and night. Friends bought meat from them and then delivered it to stores. They named their brainchild ‘Mother's Farm’.

However, in February 2022 Yulia and her husband left everything and went to fight the full-scale Russian invasion. The woman managed to call her neighbours: “Hey guys, why don’t you take the chickens for free.” She also informed her volunteering friends: “We have pigs: you can cut them up for stew for our soldiers.” Volunteers took Yulia’s kids and mother to the west of Ukraine.

In a month, the sniper fell ill, and her husband insisted they should be more careful: “There’s a chance the same mine could blow us both up. Who will take care of our four children? Go to them and get cured.”

Later, Yulia returned to Zaporizhzhia, to her empty farm. She began to restore everything. Now, she has a farm with a thousand broiler chickens, an employee, and a shop called Soloma, where they sell goods from ‘Mother’s Farm’, as well as craft products from local partners. For her family, Yulia also keeps goats and geese.

A veteran must be able to feed their children

Yulia received a UAH 250,000 (5,500 euros) veteran grant from the State Employment Service and used it to purchase equipment for the production of granulated compound feed.

“When speaking at various venues, I emphasise: the most important thing for a veteran is not psychological help to adapt to a peaceful life, although this is certainly very good and I myself use a psychologist’s services.

“The most important thing for a veteran is to be able to feed their children. If there are no funds, no specialist will help. When veterans come back from war, they need a job or a small business. Benefits or subsidies won’t work. I, for example, don’t use my status as a combat veteran in Zaporizhzhia.”

“Once, I showed my combat veteran certificate in a minibus, and they told me that I ‘sucked someone off’ for it.” she says. “I don't want to fight with anyone, I just want to get home to my children — I’d rather pay the money saying nothing than waste my nerves. Still, when I hear things like that, I picture my female comrades before my eyes, how they were dying.”

“I’ve seen death with my own eyes, while those people haven't,” the veteran's voice is full of pain. “My standards are falling: I realise I can now pull out a driver's eyes with my bare hands... But I won’t risk my psyche. So, I generally don't use my benefits.”

“Veterans do not exploit the benefits system. These are the people who took responsibility for themselves, for their families, for people from a neighbouring house, for the whole country. After their return, they can find themselves a peaceful life — they just need a little help.”

In her opinion, the best solution for veterans is for them to stand firmly on their feet, running their business. Some will be unable to return to their previous activities. Her deceased comrade was a music teacher before the war. Having post-concussion syndrome, he said: “Find me some courses. I'm half deaf, how can I be involved in music? And if there are children nearby — what if I lose control?” He resigned in 2019 and became a farmer, ploughing a field. After the start of the full-scale invasion, he returned to the defence forces and died in the battle for the Kyiv region.

Not everyone will want to return to their old professions. Like Yulia. Previously, she was an economist, and worked in sales, and had two dozen employees under her command.

“Now I can't smile all day at the counter, I won't be able to resolve conflicts,” explains the veteran. “I don't want a position where I have to talk to people all the time. I'm better with chickens.

“That's why I hired a friendly shop assistant. And my job is to make delicious sausages, slaughter and butcher fifty chickens overnight, clean their cages, and feed them. This is hard work, but I like it.

“My experience won’t suit everyone. But I share it because someone can decide to try it for themselves. I started from scratch, I had no savings. Hence, I advise everyone to apply for grants, state or foreign ones, and ask for help from various funds.

“That first grant helped me a lot. When I got it, I immediately informed my female comrades: one makes sweets, while the other produces handmade soap. ‘Oksana, Lilia, I succeeded! I won a thousand euros. Sit down and write — I will help.’

“If it won't work the first time, it will the second time. I can tell everyone how to fill the form and take my mistakes into account. Girls from Lviv planning to open a greenhouse farm have responded to me.”

I ask what is the most pleasant and the most difficult thing for Yulia in her work. The farmer thinks that over.

“It’s difficult without a husband, because there are many technical issues: for example, the pump may break. Still, my son has already learned everything: both to repair equipment and to smoke chickens.

“It was difficult during the blackouts, because the temperature in the incubator must always be kept at 30 degrees Celsius — otherwise, the chickens will die. We hence spent each night on the farm with a generator, getting up every two hours to check if electricity is back.

“Another issue is that kindergartens aren’t open. My mother is no longer here — she died last year, and so did my father.

“It’s good that children eat natural products. If I make a sausage, it only includes salt, spices and meat. And I also like it,” she smiles, “when a new life emerges from the eggs.”.