The life of Lieut Yulia Mykytenko is deeply intertwined with the recent history of her native Ukraine.
Born shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Mykytenko spent her early childhood in Bucha, the city outside Kyiv that was the site of a massacre by invading Russian forces at the start of the full-scale invasion in early 2022.
When the Euromaidan protests began in 2013 against Russia’s influence over the Ukrainian government, Mykytenko was one of thousands to take to the streets and force President Viktor Yanukovych to flee to Moscow.
After Russia launched its invasion of Crimea and the Donbas, Mykytenko signed up with the armed forces and became an officer leading a frontline reconnaissance battalion.
She returned to civilian life, only to rejoin on the day Russia tried to take over the rest of Ukraine in 2022. She now leads a drone battalion on the frontline, where her unit is part of the effort to halt Russia’s slow, grinding advance.
It is not hard to see why journalist Lara Marlowe chose the commander as the subject for her new book, How Good It Is I Have No Fear Of Dying, which charts both Mykytenko’s extraordinary life and Ukraine’s recent history.
“She’s just such an engaging person. There’s something just unique about her,” says Marlowe. “She has charisma and courage and strength and vulnerability and just an incredible number of qualities united in one person. You don’t often find that.”
Over the course of many lengthy interviews conducted over video chat while Mykytenko was on the front line, Marlowe listened to her story before shaping it into a book. The two only met in person for the first time earlier this month.
The process was “not without problems”, Marlowe recalls. “Several times she had to cancel appointments. The first time she had a tank column going through her village.
“The second time, one of her drone pilots was killed, which was sobering, and the third time, she was under constant bombardment for weeks by the Russians, and we just didn’t hear from her. We were getting extremely worried.”
Sitting in Marlowe’s diningroom in Dublin eating apple pie, Mykytenko is a slight woman with streaks of blue in her hair, on a brief break from commanding troops on the front lines of a war.
When she took over a recon platoon in 2016, some of the soldiers made it clear they had a problem being commanded by a woman.
Despite all the technical advancements, artillery is still the god of war
— Lieut Yulia Mykytenko
Mykytenko told the men they were free to leave. And she says 16 of the 20 did, taking most of the unit’s equipment with them. She was forced to build the platoon back up almost from scratch.
Later, when she appeared before senior officers and demanded more rest leave for her men, a general muttered, “you just need a man”. She stood her ground and refused to leave the meeting. Afterwards, several other officers apologised for the general’s behaviour.
About 20 per cent of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are women, with most serving in support roles. The number of women involved in front-line combat is growing, however, along with the number of female casualties.
There are many problems of sexism and abuse within the Ukrainian army, not unlike those recently documented in the Irish Defence Forces. Mykytenko and her colleagues have campaigned to address these, including pushing for uniforms and body armour designed to fit women, and for women to be recognised as front-line combatants.
But much of the real reform will have to wait until they defeat the “common enemy”, she says.
Females also face the risk of sexual violence if they are captured by the enemy. There are many such stories. The books recalls a 12-year-old who had to undergo reconstructive surgery after she was gang-raped by Russia soldiers who shot dead her parents.
Capture is one of Mykytenko’s greatest fears. “If I have to choose between death and captivity, I will choose death, because I do not want to be tortured,” she says.
A more immediate concern for her and her soldiers are artillery shells. Both sides in the war are employing advanced technology, including the various drones operated by Mykytenko’s unit. But in many ways, the conflict resembles those fought a century ago. Artillery shells account for more causalities than any other weapon and many engagements boil down to who has the most.
Currently, Russia is winning the battle, producing five shells for every one in Ukraine’s arsenal.
“Despite all the technical advancements, artillery is still the god of war,” Mykytenko’s says.
She speaks from experience. Just last week she was on the front line under bombardment from Russia shells. By the middle of next week she will be back there.
She recently lost one of her drone pilots to shelling. “The Russians now are giving priority to killing drone pilots because they’re dangerous, that’s how they lose so many of their men.”
Mykytenko is not yet 30 but she is already a widow because of Russian artillery. Before joining the armed forces, she met Illia, an injured veteran of the eastern front whom her father had taken under his wing.
They fell in love and married after a romance. After Mykytenko joined the military, the pair served in separate units in the same sector of the front. At one stage, Mykytenko, who was eager to see more front-line combat, plotted with Illia to sneak away from their positions and steal an armoured vehicle from the Russian lines.
They never got the chance. On February 22nd, 2018 she received word Illia had received a shrapnel wound to his chest during Russian shelling. “Pray for him,” she was told.
Mykytenko’s commanding officer refused to let her take a vehicle to go to rescue him. Illia died from his wounds a short time later.
“He was a rock for me, a waterfall that surrounded me with waves of love and understanding,” she recalls in the book. “I slip the wedding ring from his finger and hug him. An orderly stands a few feet away, apparently indifferent to my sobbing. When I have finished, the orderly pulls the black bag over Illia’s head and pushes the hospital gurney down the corridor.”
The war was not finished taking from Mykytenko. In 2020, her troubled father Mykola, with whom she had a complicated relationship, died by suicide on Maidan Square in Kyiv, she says. He had set himself on fire in protest at what he saw as newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s concessions to Russia over the occupied regions of Donbas and Crimea.
Mykytenko has many criticisms of Zelenskiy, including what she describes as his initial failure to stand up to Moscow and prepare the country for the full-scale invasion she and her comrades could see coming. But she does not blame him for her father’s death.
“It was my father’s choice. And if it somehow affected some decisions, then it wasn’t in vain.”
Regarding the conclusion of the war and Ukraine’s future, Mykytenko concedes she is conflicted. On the one hand, she and her fellow citizens are tired. She’s been at war almost continuously since 2016.
On the other, it is difficult to imagine granting concessions to the invader. Mykytenko accepts a peace deal may have to entail surrendering territory in the east, however. “I hope that it will be temporary. I hope that we will be back there one day,” she says.
Whatever the terms, she insists that any agreement must grant Ukraine the freedom to chart its own path, including becoming a member of the EU and Nato.
How Good It Is I have No Fear of Dying: Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko’s Fight for Ukraine by Lara Marlowe is published by Head of Zeus
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