Women and War

A geopolitician who wrote her doctoral thesis on Gazprom's export strategy to Europe via Ukraine. She has taught at several universities, including Harvard University, where she led a research program on the impact of the global energy transition on traditional oil and gas producers, such as Russia and Iran. She has given numerous conferences, including at MIT and the Université du Québec. In March 2022, she began coordinating an aid project launched by Handelsblatt (Germany’s largest financial newspaper) to support Ukrainian journalists. Since 2023 she has been writing books and screenplays.

“I read this collection of powerful and intimate letters from Ukrainian women as an antidote to the news and polemics that reduce lives to politics and statistics. These stories will move you and haunt you; they will uplift and inspire you; they will break your heart and then put it back together again as you listen to women struggling to survive yet another terrible man-made catastrophe.” — Lana Wachowski, Award-winning writer/director of The Matrix“Women and War shatters the traditional image of war. Since the Russian invasion of 2022, Ukrainian women have been more than witnesses - they are fighters, caretakers, fundraisers, and fierce pillars of resistance. This moving collection tells their stories and shows that true strength and courage know no gender.” — Mstyslav Chernov, Oscar-winning director of 20 Days in Mariupol and author of The Dreamtime“At first glance, Russia's war in Ukraine could be seen as yet another territorial invasion. For millennia, man has always wanted more. More land, more power. However, what is currently playing out in this country has many hallmarks of an ideological struggle, at the heart of which lies the fateful question: 'Do we have the right to choose what we want to be?' It is all about free will—be it political, cultural or sexual. This book is the story of Ukrainian women who have decided to choose what they want to become, and it will grip and inspire you from first page to last.” — Stephen Fry, Award-winning actor/writer/director“This is an extraordinary and essential book. The origins and consequences of the war in Ukraine have been analyzed in many ways: geopolitics, histories, cultures, and identities. The war is also, as all wars are, deeply personal. To make sense of the war is not just to explain it but to try to feel it through an act of empathy. In this book are personal stories of fear, hatred, and love in the face of injustice, cruelty, and violence. This book helps us understand the range of emotions that underpin the will of the Ukrainian people to fight, resist, and overcome. Only through the first-person narration of these Ukrainian women can we truly understand what this war means to the individuals who are living it.” — Professor Rawi Abdelal, Herbert F. Johnson Professor of International Management, Harvard Business School

• AcknowledgementsIntroductionOlga StefanyshynaSofiia O.Olena BilozerskaMariana MotrunychIryna NovokreshchenovaMariia Lepokhina, aka Masha SytaOlha BoravlovaJerry HeilIra SolomatinaMariia CherpakSofiia KropyvnytskaYana NakonechnaAdelina MokliakOlga AfanasyevaAnastasiya GrubaIryna ChernychenkoKristina PariotiAnastasia SelevanovaOksana L.Olha OlshanskaMaryna KamenskayaKateryna VozianovaTaïsia KlochkoOksana KorchynskaYuliia Paievska, aka TayraSophia PodkolsinaMeriam YolDina VongHannah MarholinaKateryna IakovlenkoEmily Channell-JusticeOleksandra Matviichuk