Combat paramedic Anastasia Fomitchova: 'Pain is good – pain means you are alive.' /CGTN
Female soldiers are a minority within Ukraine's armed forces. But there's a greater balance of men and women among its combat medical teams who are treating the wounded soldiers right next to the battlefield... all as the shelling continues.
"You don't have the time to think – there's blood everywhere," says 28-year-old Anastasia Fomitchova, who volunteered for front-line duty as soon as the fighting started.
"You transport them, then you have to take off the clothes to free the wound and evaluate the degree of the injury," the PhD student from Kyiv tells CGTN.
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Half of the 500 paramedics volunteering at 'Hospitallers' are women. In the last four months, they've treated more than 2,000 injured people directly in the combat zone.
"The situation is quite catastrophic because Russia is not only shelling the front line but also surrounding areas," says Olena Herasymyuk, who coordinates the medical equipment at the 'Hospitaller' headquarters in the country's capital.
"Our paramedics often have to treat people who've been injured in places that should be safe."
Olena Herasymyuk worked for five years as a combat paramedic before becoming a medical gear coordinator at the Kyiv headquarters. /CGTN
When removing wounded soldiers from the battlefield, driving at high speed along bumpy roads, every second counts. "I tell them that pain is good – because pain means that you are alive," says Fomitchova, standing in front of her ambulance vehicle.
One of the most dangerous jobs in the Ukraine war is increasingly being done by women. But are they treated differently on the battlefield?
"I feel treated and respected as a woman and not only as a soldier or paramedic," Fomitchova insists. "This is one aspect of the Ukrainian society I like: there's nothing wrong about it, it's not linked to any kind of discrimination."
Such life-saving work is much needed. According to the latest estimates, up to 500 Ukrainian soldiers are suffering serious injuries each day.
As long as the war goes on, Fomitchova will continue to go to the front lines, she says. "I don't feel obliged to do it, but I feel more really obliged to the people who are still there and fighting for the country and fighting for us."