Read the full article via The Atlantic by Ken Harbaugh
Women are crucial to the Ukrainian resistance. “They can go places, do things, that men cannot,” Andriushchenko, who runs agents inside Mariupol, told me. “Also, they are ruthless.” Several resistance leaders call their female agents vidma, a term that appears often in Ukrainian folklore. Its closest translation is “witch,” but it has a very different connotation here. The word derives from vidate, which means “to know.” Lesia Orobets, a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament, explained: “Vidmas were wise. They understood the secrets of the surrounding environment. Here in Ukraine, our vidmas were respected for their knowledge, not burned for it.”
These warrior-witches have become Ukraine’s most feared intelligence assets, moving through occupied territory like shadows. Orobets travels abroad often, where she is sometimes asked, “What happens if Ukraine runs out of men?”
“Be careful what you wish for,” she says. “If Ukraine’s women are in charge, there won’t be a Russian left alive.”
In the early months of the occupation, children played a role in the resistance. They slipped through checkpoints easily, took instantly to encrypted apps, and were extraordinarily brave. But the risks they took were no less grave than those faced by adults. An errant social-media post—or simply “liking” content supportive of Ukraine—was enough to get a child hauled in for interrogation. Those sessions could involve unspeakable violence, especially for girls. I interviewed one who was only 11 when her village near Kherson had been occupied. Implicated in “resistance” activities, she was dragged from her home. As we began our conversation, she apologized for her stutter. “I did not used to have this problem,” she told me, “until the Russians took me to the basement.”