From drone pilot to combat medic: The stories of 4 women killed fighting Russia
A collage of four Ukrainian women who were killed in action over the past year. From left: Maryna Vorontsova, 50, Maria Zaitseva, 24, Daria Lopatina, 19, and Lana Chornohorska, 26. (Liza Yablonska-Mykhailus/The Kyiv Independent)
Ukraine is still mourning Lana Chornohorska, a 26-year-old drone pilot beloved by many as a "catalyst" in art and cultural activism who never seemed to run out of energy.
Chornohorska, who went by her callsign "Satie," was fatally injured by a Russian drone in southeastern Zaporizhzhia Oblast on Jan. 1. Her unit, Ukrainian Volunteer Army, praised her as a devoted and courageous person who was not only a soldier, but "a prominent cultural figure."
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in March 2025 that more than 70,000 women serve in the military, including more than 5,500 who are fighting on the front line. There are no firm statistics available for how many have died while serving — President Volodymyr Zelensky has said about 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, but the military does not publish a gender breakdown of its losses. Instead, the deaths of women on the front line are often recorded through unit posts and memorials shared online.
The Kyiv Independent documented four women killed in action over the past year, based on interviews with comrades and people who knew them.
"The deaths of these women stress the visibility (in the army) to their society and their active participation in the war," Kateryna Priymak, the head of Women Veterans Movement, told the Kyiv Independent.
Chornohorska's surviving comrades described her as an extremely driven person, both in war and in the cultural sphere, taking on art projects on her days off from the front. They also remember her as an ideological activist who focused on protecting vulnerable populations.
"You could see this spark of enthusiasm in her, a spark of desire to do something," her brother-in-arms, Vladyslav, who, like many others interviewed for the story, declined to share their full names for security concerns.
Chornohorska joined the Ukrainian Volunteer Army in 2024.
"At a certain point, I realized that I would not live through another death of someone close to me if I were still in civilian life," Chornohorska told a local Kharkiv media outlet in an August 2025 interview.
Being a front-line soldier, Chornohorska lived in the moment and struggled to make long-term plans, knowing anything could happen the next day, Vladyslav remembers her saying. She was a hard worker, but she also loved to joke and always brought people from different social circles together, he said.
The Ukrainian LGBT+ Military and Veterans for Equal Rights NGO expressed "great pain" to lose a person like Chornohorska, who "walked the path of a free person" and defended individuals' rights to determine their own identities despite "a patriarchal, binary, and judgmental point of view" held by some people.
As a soldier, the 26-year-old was always eager to learn something new, demonstrating "great potential" in war and "becoming more professional" with each passing month, Vladyslav said.
"We have lost a person who could have had enormous responsibility for certain processes (in the future)," Vladyslav said.
"The potential from her ability to show initiative, the ability to take responsibility for others as well as herself."
Maryna Vorontsova, 50
Combat medic
A dedicated combat medic fighting alongside her brothers-in-arms on the hot spots of the war, Maryna Vorontsova, 50, is remembered by her comrades as a strong-willed "warrior" who always took care of those around her.
A mother of an adult daughter, Vorontsova began volunteering in 2014 after fleeing the Russian occupation of her hometown in Luhansk Oblast, and joined Peaky Blinders, an elite drone unit, in 2025.
"I am where I need to be now," Vorontsova wrote on Facebook on her 50th birthday in May 2025.
Vorontsova, who went under her callsign "Lagertha," was killed in November 2025 while fighting for Pokrovsk, a fiercely contested city in eastern Donetsk Oblast. A guided aerial bomb (KAB) fell near her, and she was declared dead by the time she was brought to a makeshift field hospital, according to her comrade Artem Fysun, who was formerly a deputy of the Kharkiv District Council.
In between her increasingly long field missions, Vorontsova tried to make the harsh front-line conditions as comfortable as possible for her comrades. She cooked "amazingly" and tried to support her comrades psychologically by ensuring their favorite foods were delivered to their positions.
Despite having less than a year of military experience, Vorontsova adapted quickly to war, trying to learn as much as possible, such as how to deal with drone attacks, according to Fysun.
"She was always calm in critical situations and provided whatever assistance was necessary within the scope of those needs," Fysun said.
Daria Lopatina, 19
Electronic warfare engineer
Daria Lopatina, 19, enlisted in the Azov Brigade during her second year of study at the Kyiv School of Economics. She was an electronic warfare engineer until she was killed in the east in September 2025.
"She was working till the end," Gaus, who served with her, told the Kyiv Independent, recalling the moment before she was killed.
Admired by her comrades and student community for her exceptional intelligence, Lopatina, who went by her callsign "Delta," could have found opportunities at an arms production company or a ministry, but she chose the hard path for herself, according to Gaus. He said she was one of those people ready to sacrifice their lives for a greater cause, and she felt that joining the army was her only option.
"Her conscience did not allow her to just watch what was happening (in Ukraine) and stand aside, although she had every opportunity to go study abroad," Gaus said.
As an engineer, she always found solutions to "any problems," and her intelligence and work ethic helped her quickly surpass many specialists in the unit, Gaus said.
"Not only did I lose Delta, but the whole world, because such people who would never abandon even a stranger in trouble and will always help everyone in need are very rare," Gaus said.
The President of the Kyiv School of Economics, Tymofiy Mylovanov, said he personally endorsed her admission to the school at the age of 17 because she was very talented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). She majored in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
"She kept pushing us, actually including me, that you don't have enough labs, you have to do more for the students," Mylovanov told the Kyiv Independent, adding that these are the kind of people "who move the country forward."
"I think it's a tragedy that the best of the Ukrainian people die," Mylovanov, a former Minister of Economic Development and Trade, said.
But he stressed that such people like Daria "awaken" those around them even after death and inspire them to strive for their goals, almost like "guardian angels."
Maria Zaitseva, 24
Combat medic
Born in Belarus, Maria Zaitseva joined the International Legion under the Ground Forces in 2023 after seeking asylum in Czechia following the anti-government protests. She was injured by a stun grenade in 2020 during the protests, which led her to undergo several surgeries in Belarus before receiving more treatment in the Czech Republic.
Zaitseva was killed the day after her 24th birthday near Pokrovsk in January 2025.
"One day, a free Belarus will honor her as a hero of our people," exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said in a February 2025 X post.
For Zaitseva, the road to Ukraine began during the protests in Belarus. She "firmly believed" that after the war in Ukraine, the next fight would be in her home for Belarusian freedom, according to Glenna Manchego, an American combat medic who goes by her callsign "BabyDoc," who served with her. Manchego said Zaitseva also had a Ukrainian girlfriend.
"Everybody loved her and she loved everybody, and she was just blatantly honest, like it was almost like she couldn't tell a lie, and she's just very firm in her beliefs," Manchego told the Kyiv Independent.
Zaitseva was a combat medic, joining the Legion's medical service because it was often the only option for foreign female volunteers without prior military experience, and she was studying to be a veterinarian in Belarus before the protests. Her commander initially resisted sending her into the trench, but she finally won him over in the summer of 2023, and "she loved fighting on the zero line, and providing medical care there," Manchego said.
Manchego said she saw Zaitseva as a younger sister, and their bond was instant: They were both part of the LGBTQ community, and they loved sharing stories. The American remembers how excited Zaitseva was to go to the front for the first time. When she returned, covered in mud and looking tired, Zaitseva treated it as though it wasn't a big deal, and the trench was "where she belonged," Manchego said.
"I feel like the world lost an excellent role model and an excellent hero that little girls could look up to because you don't see a lot of it," Manchego said.
"I look back to when I was a little girl, if I had seen someone like Masha (Zaitseva) wearing the uniform, being a medic in the military, or being a sniper in the military, I definitely would have idolized her and seen her as one of my role models and someone to look up to."
A note from the author:
Hi, this is Asami, the author of this article. Thank you for reading it till the end. Personally, the hardest part of this war has been losing incredible people one after another, and I wanted to make a contribution by telling the stories of some of the brave women who were killed while defending Ukraine. Of course, there are more heroic people killed in this war, both from Ukraine and abroad, and many of their stories, unfortunately, rarely get told. Please consider supporting our reporting, which is available without a paywall thanks to the support of our members.
