Before the conflict started in Ukraine, Oleksandr Zhuhan was an actor, stage director and a drama teacher living in Kyiv. He had been living for seven years with his partner Antonina Romanova, who identifies as a non-binary person and uses the pronouns she/her. 

Romanova, originally from the Crimea, had moved to the capital after being displaced by the Russians in 2014. She also worked in the theater, where the two met.

The couple would not describe themselves as LGBTQ activists, but both are open about their sexuality.

Before getting dressed into military fatigues on the day of their second combat rotation together with the Territorial Defense army, the two spent their last moments in their apartment contemplating their biggest fear: being buried separately.

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"The thing I'm worried about is that in case I get killed during this war, they won't allow Antonina to bury me the way I want to be buried," Zhuhan says.

"They'd rather let my mum bury me with the priest reading silly prayers and these religious things. But I am an atheist and I don't want that." 

Neither trained to use weapons before the conflict began but after spending a couple of days hiding in their bathroom at the start of the Russian offensive, they decided they had to do more.

"I just remember that at a certain point it became obvious that we only had three options: either hide in a bomb shelter, run away and escape, or join the Territorial Defense. We chose the third option," explains Romanova.

A life-changing deployment

Their first tour of duty around the Mykolaiv area in southern Ukraine, approximately 135 kilometers from the port town of Odesa, changed their lives. They fought in the same unit but it was terrifying – Zhuhan contracted pneumonia and they risked death from Russian artillery. 

But, the couple say, their fellow fighters accepted them.

"There was no aggression, no bullying, no aggression," Romanova says. "A slight surprise, it was a little unusual for the others. But, over time people started calling me Antonina, some even used my 'she' pronoun."

But after a three-month-long rotation, when they came back it was as though life had been put on pause.

"It feels like you're in a fish tank – you're just observing life going by," Zhuhan explains.

"I can't be living here because for the last three months I'm used to living and sleeping on the floor, being in different shabby places," he says. "This place is nice but it doesn't feel like my own anymore."

Special LGBTQ unicorn insignia

This time, as they leave for Mykolaiv on their second rotation, the couple will proudly wear a special insignia on the arm of their uniform, depicting a unicorn.

"It dates back to 2014 when the Russian war started. Lots of people said there are no gay people in the army," explains Zhuhan. However, members of the LGBTQ community were ready not just to fight for their country, but for their identity. 

"They chose the unicorn because it is like a fantastic 'non-existent' creature," Zhuhan says, showing the unicorn insignia on the arm of his camouflage jacket. "And so it became the symbol of LGBTQ people in the army." 

The insignia has only just started being rolled out amongst the community themselves, so many fighters will not have seen it and not understand what it means.

"I think people in Mykolaiv are going to ask questions and we are not going to hide," says Zhuhan. "We are going to be very open about it."

The couple are keen to not only defend their country from the Russians but also to protect their LGBTQ community from the Russians. 

Homosexuality was deemed a criminal offense in Russia until 1993 and classed as a mental illness until 1999. Russia's LGBTQ community has been under mounting pressure since 2013 when the Kremlin adopted a gay "propaganda" law as part of a drive to defend what Putin called Russia's "traditional values". 

Zhuhan and Romanova fear for any of the LGBTQ community who are taken prisoner by the Russians.

"What Russia does is not only take our territories and kill our people, they want to destroy our culture and that's totally a no to me. I can't allow this to happen," Zhuhan says.

Being a good fighter

LGBTQ people had been allowed to serve in the military in Ukraine before the conflict began, with the first dedicated battalion founded in 2019. But conservative attitudes still persist in the country and Zhygan and Romanova have both been assaulted on the streets of Kyiv in the past.

"I know that in some units, the rules are more strict. It's like 'army'. And it wasn't like that in our unit, it was more like a children's camp where people have guns," he says, smiling and hoping it will be the same again. 

The mood became more somber as the unit members headed towards their train and boarded as dusk was falling.

After several days of traveling, Zhuhan managed to make a brief call to explain how meeting up with his new unit had been. He said one commander, in a welcoming speech, had said he would not tolerate any homophobia. 

And a more senior commander explained, the only thing that was important to the unit on the frontline was to be a good fighter; nothing else was going to matter that much.