The Unicorn Battalion
LGBTQ soldiers of Ukraine fight for the country and their rights amidst the chaos of war.
On a rainy June day in the center of Kyiv, pride flags, Ukrainian and European Union flags were getting soaked. About 500 people gathered for a Pride march that will last only an hour and will span just about a hundred meters. The city of Kyiv and the police gave a permit for the march but limited it to one and a half city blocks, citing security concerns.
It wasn't a typical pride the residents of New York, Berlin, or Amsterdam would expect to see on the streets of their cities. The first two rows of the parade goers were either active duty military or veterans holding signs calling upon the EU and other partners of Ukraine to provide more weapons. Other signs were calling for an end to the Russian genocide of Ukrainians, for demining systems, and to free Azovstal defenders - prisoners of war held in Russia and reportedly tortured. There were slogans for equality, for a bill to legalize civil partnerships, and to give protections to LGBTQ people.
Now, with her fiancé, Diana Harasko, by her side, Maria embodies resilience and defiance, having faced overwhelming homophobia and challenges on the frontlines.
Maria Volia, 31, and her fiancé Diana Harasko, 25, stood in the first rows holding hands. For Maria, a servicewoman of the 47th Brigade, this moment had been a long way coming.
Last year, on October 24th, 2022, Maria has given up. She was on the phone with Diana and told her she would be taking her life. She planned to do it with an overdose of Gidazepam, a selectively anxiolytic benzodiazepine, which is typically prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks.
LGBTQ soldiers of Ukraine fight for the country and their rights amidst the chaos of war.
On a rainy June day in the center of Kyiv, pride flags, Ukrainian and European Union flags were getting soaked. About 500 people gathered for a Pride march that will last only an hour and will span just about a hundred meters. The city of Kyiv and the police gave a permit for the march but limited it to one and a half city blocks, citing security concerns.
It wasn't a typical pride the residents of New York, Berlin, or Amsterdam would expect to see on the streets of their cities. The first two rows of the parade goers were either active duty military or veterans holding signs calling upon the EU and other partners of Ukraine to provide more weapons. Other signs were calling for an end to the Russian genocide of Ukrainians, for demining systems, and to free Azovstal defenders - prisoners of war held in Russia and reportedly tortured. There were slogans for equality, for a bill to legalize civil partnerships, and to give protections to LGBTQ people.
Now, with her fiancé, Diana Harasko, by her side, Maria embodies resilience and defiance, having faced overwhelming homophobia and challenges on the frontlines.
Maria Volia, 31, and her fiancé Diana Harasko, 25, stood in the first rows holding hands. For Maria, a servicewoman of the 47th Brigade, this moment had been a long way coming.
Last year, on October 24th, 2022, Maria has given up. She was on the phone with Diana and told her she would be taking her life. She planned to do it with an overdose of Gidazepam, a selectively anxiolytic benzodiazepine, which is typically prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks.
Diana and Maria have been dating for just a few weeks. It's been about three months since Diana, a civilian volunteer from Bila Tsekrva, messaged Maria on Instagram, responding to one of the stories from muddy trenches near Bakhmut. "How are you? Although it's probably a stupid question given your circumstances", the message said. After a couple of weeks of exchanging messages online, Diana came to Kramatorsk and proposed on a first date.
Now she listened to Maria's raspy voice saying her final goodbye. Diana panicky dialed the number of Maria's commander. Thankfully he picked up the phone. A few minutes later medics were rushing to Maria.
Three weeks after her suicide attempt, I met Maria for the first time. In the visitor's room of the Acute Psychiatric Ward for Women at a large hospital complex outside of Dnipro, she was sitting at a table with a plastic tablecloth, wearing her fleece with a rainbow badge, not exactly sure how she got there.
"I don't have a home anymore, I don't have any rights. What am I fighting for?", she asked me. Her frustration built up from a feeling of not being accepted or understood by her people and her country even after almost ten years of service.
Maria volunteered in the Army at 22 after seeing Russia taking Crimea and sparking the war in Eastern Ukraine. Her city, Mariupol, was briefly taken over by pro-Russian separatists, and liberating it was one of the more significant wins for the Ukrainians in the summer of 2014. After signing up for the service, it wasn't long before she noticed signs of sexism from the soldiers around her. She'd hear things like "war is not a place for a woman" and see how male soldiers were treated with more trust and respect by the command.
She wanted to prove herself. Full of idealism, she fought for the right to be assigned to the front. Eventually, she got deployed to Pisky as a radio specialist with the 56th Brigade, where one of the fiercest battles for the Donetsk airport took place.
After active deployment, she stayed in the service and was stationed in her hometown with the 56th Brigade until winter 2022. And that is when the city became a place of a brutal stalemate between encircled Ukrainian troops and the massive, overwhelming force of the invading Russian Army. After taking heavy losses, her unit, along with the soldiers from the 36th Marine Brigade and the 1st Marine Battalion, got barricaded in the Illych metal factory. They attempted to break through the encirclement and leave the city. On the first attempt, they used armored vehicles and failed. The second attempt, this time on foot, paid off, and they could bypass the Russian patrols and checkpoints unscathed and unnoticed and sneak out from the besieged city shortly after midnight of March 12.
They were a group of 45 soldiers walking silently in the dead of night. Ahead laid an arduous journey through the forests and steppe of the Donetsk region to reach Ukrainian-controlled territory. With no cell reception, limited provisions and no information on where the current front line is, they ventured into freezing thick darkness.
The group stayed in abandoned houses, hunted for rabbits, and cooked chickens they stole from deserted farms. They split into three groups of fifteen to avoid detection - one later being captured by the Russians. Maria's group got spotted by Russian soldiers on the 8th day of their march when they were attempting to cross a river near the village of Staromaiske - just a few kilometers away from the Ukrainian-controlled territories at the time. A firefight ensued, and Maria took a bullet in her left arm. But the river crossing was a success. They reached Velyka Novosilivka and a Ukrainian checkpoint five hours after that fight.
On the edge of passing out and with a tourniquet on her arm, she was taken to a hospital. On the 21st of March, Maria sat on a hospital bed, filmed by her friend Nastya smiling and saying that she couldn't wait to go to Dnipro and get a takeaway from McDonalds.
But the McDonalds in Dnipro was closed, like most other businesses. The country was scrambling to fight its land-hungry neighbor's massive invasion, and the ever-changing frontline was burning. Ukraine needed its soldiers, and Maria, yet again, was sent into the thick of it, now towards Bakhmut in the Donetsk region.
The previous experience made Maria reevaluate things, and she decided to speak freely about her sexuality. Her injury and the realization of how fragile everything around her was made her not care about other people's opinions.
After coming out as a lesbian to her brothers-in-arms, she started talking publicly about her experience of being a queer person in the service. Her posts on social media about life in trenches near Bakhmut attracted attention from both supporters and critics.
Homophobic comments and messages were piling up and were so overwhelming that they were pushing Maria to depression. Her fragility, caused by her recent experience in Mariupol, her coming out, and being sent back to the front were among the things that pushed her to attempt suicide. “I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I didn’t want to even try…” she said.
Maria, with support from Diana, has eventually recovered and recently transferred to the 47th Brigade. She now serves on the Eastern front and took a leave to visit the Kyiv Pride. A day before the Pride march in Kyiv, she came upon a group of young people, most of them teenagers holding banners supporting "Traditional Values," and argued with them, filming herself. The next day, during Pride, she held her fiancé's hand in defiance of all those who disapprove of her way of loving someone.
After the speeches were over, flags and banners folded, the crowd slowly dispersed. Not five blocks away on Khreschatyk Street, a few hundred people - mostly young men wearing black shirts and hoodies spilled out of another gathering for "Traditional Values." Tipped off where the Pride was held, they ran, clashing with the police and desiring to reach the Pride goers. It didn't matter to them that they were running to fight people who were actively defending their country.
Most Ukrainians had generally disapproving views on non-heterosexual unions before the war, but polls show that public opinion has shifted considerably during the full-scale invasion. The most recent poll conducted by the National Democratic Institute and released in February 2024, had more than 70 percent positively answering the question "Should LGBT+ people have the same rights as others?" while in 2019, the number was below 30%.
But Ukrainian legislation is lagging far behind. Despite years of campaigning from various human rights and LGBTQ organizations as well as well as pressure from the EU, the Ukrainian Parliament hasn't passed hate-crime laws to include acts against gay or trans people. Besides that, any non-heterosexual union is not recognized by the law, and the Ukrainian Constitution states that marriage is a union of a man and a woman.
Inna Sovsun, a 39-year-old Ukrainian MP from the Holos party, is trying to address the most pressing issue for non-heterosexual couples in the time of the war, especially those who serve - to pass a law that will give the same protections a traditionally married couple would have under Ukrainian laws. One of the most urgent needs for LGBTQ service members in wartime Ukraine is basic legal recognition for their partners or spouses as a family member.
For now - a same-sex couple, or any non-heterosexual couple, has zero legal rights as a unit. For military families it plays a particular importance in cases of death, disappearance, being taken prisoner or being seriously injured. Your partner, in the eyes of the law, is a stranger to you and, therefore, can not make legal, medical, posthumous, or any other decisions a heterosexual partner in a moment of crisis would have access to.
The bill with the number 9103 was registered in the Ukrainian Parliament in March 2023 but has yet to make its way to the Ukrainian Parliament's floor for the vote. It has passed some important milestones, receiving approval from the Minister of Justice and the Ministry of Defense. However, after a year and a half since its registration, it is still unclear when the bill will be voted on, if ever. As of now, it seems hopelessly stuck in the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Legal Policy, which is tasked to give the bill a legal mark and vote for it to be either passed on to the floor of the Parliament or to another committee or to be killed altogether.
Inna Sovsun co-wrote the bill with a lawyer Maria Klyus, whose close friend, Petro Zhyrukha is a bisexual man serving in the Ukrainian Army. Petro is one of a rather small group of Ukrainian servicemen who are open and public about their sexual orientation.
Petro is 28. He is a classically trained musician who never imagined being in the army. However, he felt compelled to defend his homeland against Russian aggression and volunteered immediately after the invasion.
Initially, his sexuality wasn't an issue, but as homophobic jokes began to surface, Petro found himself needing to adjust his behavior to fit in with his new surroundings. He'd laugh at the jokes and try to fit in.
Once, his commanders said he hoped that his unit had none of "those people". Petro felt queasy. On another occasion, a soldier from his unit said that he'd "kill a faggot” if he saw one.
His parents never knew, and neither did his fellow soldiers. But at some point, Petro got tired of hiding this part of his identity and decided to come out. "I chose this hetero-membrane and had to modify my speech, behavior… I didn't want to do it anymore". In June of 2022, after four months of service, he told the people from his unit. The reaction was bad. There were looks and whispers. Other soldiers didn't want to stand in line for showers with him or sit next to him. But little by little, conversation by conversation, things have shifted. A guy who said he'd "kill a faggot” if he saw one, after meeting Petro said that now he would not. He'd never met a gay person before, he explained.
Maria Klyus, Petro's friend and a deputy of Inna Sovsun was worried about him. Petro thought she was losing sleep over his coming out. One day, Maria called Petro and told him about the bill they were drafting. He was shocked. He was in disbelief that someone would do such a titanic amount of work to protect him and others like him. Although the bill covers a wide area and benefits any civil partnership, he took the gesture very personally and wanted to support it however he could.
At that point, not many outside his unit knew about his sexuality, and he initially intended to keep it that way. But after a phone call with Maria, he decided he would start a government petition to support the bill. This meant putting his name on a piece of paper that would reveal his sexual orientation to everyone. "If I'm not ready now, when will I be?" he asked himself.
However, he never came out to his parents. Understanding the impact and publicity this gesture would result in, he knew his name would become public, and he didn't want them to find out from the news.
Petro placed a call to his father and asked to be put on speakerphone. After an exchange of How are you's, he said, "I have to share something very important to me," and paused before saying that he likes men as well as women. His mom immediately yelled at him, saying, "Petro, my god, I thought someone died!". His father said calmly that he will always shake his hand no matter who he liked.
Petro's heart soared. His whole adult life, he had been afraid of this moment, and there it was—a gigantic stone had been lifted off his chest.
With the help of an NGO, he drafted a petition in support of Bill 9103 and registered it on the President's website. Petitions like that have no legal ramifications, but they are intended to show support from the public. Once a petition collects 25000 signatures, it lands on the President's desk, and the President writes their recommendations and comments. Once the petition was online, the social media frenzy has started. Petro's phone started lighting up every few minutes - dozens of messages and calls with words of support, appreciation and, sometimes, disbelief. Now Petro has come out to the entire country.
"I was free", he said. The soldier who wanted to "kill a faggot” when he saw one, said that he'll sign the petition.
The Army officials try to avoid the subject of LGBTQ rights like it's an infectious disease, and when the circumstances require addressing any questions regarding gay or trans service members, the Ministry and the Army officials typically try to exhibit plausible deniability. In a note of non-support that the Ministry of Defense issued in response to Bill 9103 shortly after its introduction, it originally was stated that "the information about thousands of military servicemen who cannot officially formalize their relationships with same-sex partners, set out in the explanatory note to the draft law, needs additional study due to the lack of relevant data in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine."
In a move that was seen as awkward and cringeworthy by many LGBTQ rights activists, the Ministry of Defence has decided to conduct such a study by issuing a poll among some of the service members, basically asking, "Are you gay?".
"Questionnaire for the study of issues of sexual orientation, the need for registering of civil partnerships and issues in this specific area" - a printed form containing seven questions about gender discrimination within the unit where the respondent served, sexual preference in choosing a partner, and question on either a respondent, if in a same-sex relationship, potentially would face "problems" with inheritance if they were to be injured, killed or declared missing in action.
Maksym was one of the servicemen who received this questionnaire. His description of the process painted a picture of a lack of education, empathy, and basic humility among those tasked with collecting answers.
Maksym, a closeted gay man in the ranks of the Ukrainian Air Force, recounted how, one morning, a senior officer in his company distributed the questionnaire without any explanation. The attitude seemed to be: here is a pen and paper, do whatever you want. The crowd around Maksym became rowdy, with gay insults and jokes filling the room. Some airmen declined to fill out the questionnaire. Maksym later saw one form lying on a table marked with big block letters saying, "I'M NOT A FAG."
The officer returned later to collect the forms, sometimes peering at them as he picked them up from the pilots. "That was a mockery of anonymity," said Maksym. Later, the same officer returned with a few more forms, saying they needed to be filled out to meet the quota. A few airmen were absent—either injured or on leave—and the command required the exact number of forms to be returned. "Who wants to help out with the fag test?" the officer asked.
It's unclear what the fate of this poll was, and whether it led to anything. The body tasked with addressing equality within the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Department of Humanitarian Support of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, has not responded to repeated attempts to contact them regarding this article.
After speaking with four MOD staffers, none of whom wanted to go on record, and after going through Ministry's documents online, I was not able to find a single official program dedicated to fighting discrimination against LGBTQ personnel or educating rank and file on the LGBTQ topics, or even an acknowledgment that queer people are in the ranks. The Ministry of Defense does have a hotline for sexual abuse and violence, as well as mechanisms for handling it.
An openly gay staffer of the Ministry of Defence who also did not want to go on record told me that people who are responsible for equality and gender issues often lack basic knowledge about anything that goes beyond the manual issued by the Ministry.
At the same time, the same person told me that they understand that there are much more pressing issues for the country in times of war, and unless there is an overwhelming problem in the Armed Forces that needs addressing, it's often put on the back burner.
Questions related to LGBTQ issues in Ukraine have already created some headaches for the current government. A recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights involved two Ukrainians, Andriy Maymulakhin and Andriy Markiv, who claimed that the Ukrainian government denied them the same rights afforded to heterosexual couples. The couple has cohabitated since 2010 but has been unable to register as domestic partners. According to their filing, they attempted to register as a married couple on seven occasions, but all applications were denied. After the Russian invasion in February 2022, Mr. Mykhaylovych joined the National Guard and served for a year before being discharged for health reasons.
A Ukrainian judge in the European Court, Mykola Gnatovskyy, voted in favor of the decision. The Ukrainian government defense council used bill 9103 as a defense, claiming that Ukraine is already implementing the necessary laws to protect same-sex couples. The court, however, rejected the argument, citing that the bill is not yet a law. The European court's decision is now a pain in the neck for the Ukrainian government. Besides the restitution they must pay the couple, it now hangs over Ukraine's head on the path to the much-desired membership in the EU.
But from the Brussels courtrooms to Kyiv government corridors to muddy trenches near Avdiivka lies a great distance. While lawmakers, generals, and judges weigh in, LGBTQ Ukrainians who serve are experiencing not only a lack of recognition in the eyes of the law but also severe discrimination. Their stories and personal suffering often disappear into the abyss of endless death and destruction that overwhelms the entire country every single day. "It's not timely" rings across comments on social media from critics. "It's not timely," repeat the lawmakers at the Committee on Legal Policy, according to the transcripts of their most recent deliberations discussing Bill 9103 in July 2024. After having the bill on their agenda for over a year, it still has not been voted on.
But for those individuals, the personal trauma of not being recognized or respected for who they are is very timely. More so, it is ever-present.
Henadzi Aprosimau, a 25-year-old bisexual Belarusian man and a soldier in the ranks of the International Legion, crossed the Ukrainian border on a warm July night in 2020. He carried papers indicating he was entering the country for a medical procedure. Packed light, his belongings—slippers, shampoo, and a few pairs of underwear—fit into a single backpack.
Five days earlier, while at home in Minsk, Henadzi received a phone call from a nearby police precinct requesting he appear for a "friendly conversation." He knew what that meant. Several of his friends who attended such conversations were threatened with incarceration if they continued any "recidivist" activity, and some were already jailed.
Belarusian authorities were cracking down on any form of dissent following the ongoing anti-government protests in the country that summer, gradually imprisoning activists one by one. Journalists, students, doctors, and college professors were getting whisked from their apartments or off the streets, starting with those who were more visible.
Henadzi was an active participant in the protests, and his name appeared as an organizer in several social media posts; he knew the role that was already scripted for him by the Belarusian authorities. So he packed his bag and, after arranging logistics with BYSOL, an organization that helped Belarusian dissidents find a way out of the country, headed to Kyiv.
A newly found home suited Henadzi. After a few months had passed, he stopped being spooked by black vans and people in police uniforms. He found a place to live and continued with his activism from Kyiv. He surrounded himself with people from the diaspora, which had grown considerably after the new wave of repressions started in Belarus. "I was continuing to fight for Belarus", he says about his time in Kyiv.
But he was not planning to fight for Ukraine. The Ukrainian government had continued flirting with Lukashenko's dictatorship, and even though many Belarusian expats ended up in Kyiv seeking protection from the regime, it wasn't a safe space. Visa-free travel and lax security allowed Russian and Belarussian intelligence services to operate in Kyiv almost freely. In August 2021, one of the most vocal Belarusian activists, Vitaly Shishov, was found hanged in a forest not far from his apartment. The death was ruled a homicide and never solved. In 2022, Dzianis Stadzhi, a Belarusian journalist critical of the Belarusian regime who had lived in Ukraine since 2018, was beaten, tortured, and drugged for several days in his own apartment in Kyiv. When Dzianis stopped answering his wife's calls, she rushed to Kyiv from their family hideout in Western Ukraine and found him unconscious, tied up, and wrapped in plastic bags, inches from death. Their apartment was turned upside down, and electronic storage devices were stolen. Suspicion fell on Belarusian government operatives, but Ukrainian police did not arrest anyone in connection with the assault and torture.
Henadzi saw the war in Ukraine as the start of the liberation of Belarus. In March 2023, he enrolled in the International Legion, partially motivated by the thought that he would gather experience to continue the fight to liberate Belarus from the dictatorship when the time came. After three months of training, he was sent to the northern border with Russia, and then joined the fight on the Eastern Front.
Henadzi had been open with people in his life about his sexuality. It caused problems in the past - particularly a fallout with his religious family. But in the Army's structure, he felt it wasn't safe to talk openly about this part of his life. The rank and file in the International Legion are mostly foreign volunteers - mainly Americans and Europeans who, on average, have more progressive views, with Ukrainian commanders who are significantly more conservative and, according to Henadzi, occasionally openly homophobic. "I am trying to avoid this subject altogether," he told me. "I don't want to be shot in the back".
That seems like an overly dramatic fear, but in an environment that is numb to violence and where homophobia is rampant, being gay presents a real threat. In war, you rely on a person next to you for your well-being and, oftentimes, your life.
So besides being courageous and setting an example, for a service person who is open about their sexuality, it often means putting a target on their back.
When Henadzi was transferred to a new outpost in December 2023, a new deputy commander of the battalion noticed him wearing a patch featuring a unicorn - a symbol of the Ukrainian union called LGBT Military, and asked him, "What's this faggot thing doing on your uniform".
Henadzi held his tongue. His life depended on the decisions that this commander would make in the future.
The unicorn patches became a uniting symbol and an identifying mark of the LGBTQ community among the service members in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Issued by the LGBT Military Union - a grassroots organization fighting for the rights of the queer members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, both open and closeted - it has about 400 members, with less than a quarter of them being open. Victor Pylypenko, the founder of the union and the first openly gay man in the Ukrainian Military, has been at the forefront of defending those who decided to come out and protecting those who are not ready to do so.
Not carrying any specific weight besides being open about their sexuality, these patches are a statement. However, they open both doors for allies and homophobes, and by wearing them on their uniform, these soldiers accept a level of risk of being targeted.
"I know there are gay people in the military who are not interested in joining our group either maybe because they don't know about us or they aren't interested in potential unwanted publicity," says Viktor. Being outspoken himself, he has been paid back with multiple public attacks, mainly from the members of conservative groups, far-right organizations, pundits, as well as members of the clergy.
The most recent scandal was the recall of an award that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church decorated several members of Viktor's unit of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade for "Self-sacrifice and love for Ukraine," and then recalled his medal saying that the Philaret "did not know about the sinful tendencies" of one of the recipients of this medal. Then it was noted that "Patriarch Filaret and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church without exception takes a principled negative stand on the sin of Sodom and condemns the propaganda of the so-called same-sex marriages." After this embarrassing medal pirouette, several members of the 72nd Brigade have given back the award, most with harsh public criticism of the Church.
This is neither the first nor likely the last instance of confusion and tension over the divide in Ukrainian society on LGBTQ issues. Viktor has borne the brunt of these attacks as the public figure representing LGBTQ members of the Military. He has become a target not only for critics within the country but also for Russian propaganda, which tends to portray homosexuality as one of the poisonous fruits of the sinister Western World.
In the summer of 2021, even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a rant by Olga Skabaeva, a Russian propagandist and pundit on Russian TV, really took the cake when she announced on her program that "President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the advice of American leader Joe Biden, is sending 'columns of Ukrainian homosexuals to Donbas'." This was based on an earlier announcement on the LGBT Military Facebook page that said, "We invite motivated LGBT+ people, military personnel, specialists, as well as people friendly to the LGBT+ community, who want to sign a contract with one of the motorized infantry units of the Armed Forces."
That announcement was immediately picked up and taken apart by right-wing and conservative powers in Ukraine and eventually made its way to Russian TV. A totally fictitious tale of the "Unicorn Battalion" was born.
Viktor, again, was fiercely criticized by people inside the country as an "agent of the Kremlin" while simultaneously providing more fuel to the never-idling Moscow propaganda and disinformation machine.
Neither the Unicorn Battalion nor a gay-friendly platoon was ever formed, but Viktor continued his fight. He recalls the words of one commander he served with who said to him "If the gays create their unit and call it the battalion of unicorns, then I will accept them." In a sort of cheeky response to criticism and falsehoods, the logo of the LGBT Military featuring a unicorn was created.
Victor's fight is a fight of other union members. One of the most prominent cases has become one of former sailor Pavlo Lagoyda.
Pavlo is 23 and now lives in Kyiv. He is one of the most outspoken members of the LGBT Military union, but, like Victor, he has been harassed and prosecuted for it. The same way he suffered for his desire and willingness to be open.
After being excommunicated from his family by his mother after being outed, Pavlo joined the Navy. It was September 2021, and he was just 19 years old. The big war loomed over Ukraine. A few months later, when the missiles were raining down on towns and villages all over the country, his mother called him: "I accept you for who you are," she said crying, "Just come back home alive." He wondered why the war and his being in the service was what it took his mother to appreciate him and show acceptance, but Pavlo now had to go to war.
According to Pavlo, the issues with his commander, Lieutenant Major Leonid Bondarenko, started soon after he found out about Pavlo's sexual orientation. Pavlo says he was outed by other sailors in his orlop when he left the phone unlocked and open on the communication with his ex. When he returned, he found his shipmates laughing. "So you're a fucking faggot?" one of them grinned at Pavlo.
Soon, everyone knew, including his direct superiors. Lieutenant Bondarenko not only allowed other soldiers to beat Pavlo but became an abuser himself. It started with jabs at his sexuality and verbal harassment and eventually escalated to physical violence.
The first beating took place on a night watch in the spring of 2022 when Pavlo was approached by Lieutenant Bondarenko and reprimanded verbally for looking at his phone. Pavlo said they argued, Lieutenant Bondarenko tackled him, pinned him on the floor, and beaten him. The second beating happened later in November in front of witnesses - this time over a quarrel on how to best unload a supply truck. Bondareko's superiors couldn't ignore it and re-stationed Pavlo but did not reprimand Bondarenko.
The text chain between Pavlo and his commander is volatile. Mr. Bondarenko calls Pavlo "a sociopath" and tells him he should be studied for medical journals because of his "sickness." Using profane terms, Pavlo responds with threats to sue him and the unit. Then it switches to even-toned conversations about reports and questions about switching units and demobilization. Strings of unanswered texts and calls appear first from Pavlo, then from Mr. Bondarenko.
From the phone and paper trail between them it seems like Mr. Bondarenko doesn't want Pavlo to go anywhere and enjoys the intricate and routine torture through his power over his subordinate. He sends him on meaningless tasks, to various medical and psychological examinations, but doesn't allow him to transfer or change the contract. Pavlo said he had sent him on two psych evaluations where doctors, without examining him, gave him a diagnosis that categorized him as "not fit for active duty." Lieutenant Bondarenko says the psych evaluations were not initiated by him and were done independently because sailor Lagoyda was trying to switch to contract service and switch to another unit.
Pavlo later appealed through the Ministry of Defence and was sent to an examination in Kyiv where the decision was overturned, and he was deemed healthy and fit for active duty. His lawyer confirms his account.
Lieutenant Bondarenko claims that he never saw the final diagnosis of psychiatric evaluation that Pavlo received on appeal, even though in the private text exchange with Pavlo he admits seeing the results simultaneously accusing Pavlo that they are a fake.
Lieutenant Bondarenko has also said to me that Sailor Lagoyda was just a bad soldier and an insubordinate one and was beaten by others not for being gay but for his general attitude and behavior. He also accused his subordinate of selling sex to other sailors. He didn't deny beating him himself.
In the sprint of 2024, a law was signed by President Zelenskyy allowing all conscripts who started their compulsory service before February 2024 to be demobilized. Pavlo at the time was desperately trying to change units. He jumped on the opportunity and put in his papers. A month later, he flipped his middle finger leaving his base. He was free from under his oppressor.
Bullying, harassment, and even physical violence are not unheard of in the Army. In many cases, the fate of a vulnerable person under someone's command depends on how the commander handles the situation. With the absence of education on LGBTQ+ topics among the rank and file of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, it often comes down to whether the commander will allow abuse or, as in Pavlo's case, perpetrate it himself.
But it's not always like that.
Oleksandr Zhuhan, 39, and Antonina Romanova, 38, met on a clear and warm September day of 2014. One of those autumn days when you still try to catch a last bit of disappearing summer. It was another era in Ukraine. A telltale sign of that was that they met through a Russian dating website that was still widely used in Ukraine even as Crimea was annexed, and the war in the East of Ukraine had already started.
Antonina has recently moved to Kyiv from Crimea, where, after being an active participant in pro-Ukrianian protests, her activism landed her on arrest lists. One of her activist friends, Oleg Sentsov, advised her to leave the peninsula. She did, while Oleg stayed, later being arrested himself and imprisoned for five years on bogus terrorism charges.
Oleksandr wasn't in a festive mood that evening. He was coming from a meeting where he was consoling a friend whose child was diagnosed with a complex form of autism. Antonina was wearing an old-fashioned ribbed jacket over a sweater. Oleksandr thought she looked ridiculous. They walked around with oversized takeaway cups, drank lattes, and talked. As it turned out, they had few things in common: kids with disabilities, their dispassion for Kyiv's broken infrastructure, and love for theater and art. They talked about Antonina's complex childhood, the multiple surgeries she had to undergo as a child, and her path from her lost home in Crimea to the capital. They sat by a group of teenagers, admiring the music kids played from a portable speaker. They caught the last subway train home.
Ten years later, Antonina and Oleksandr share a room in a dilapidated house a couple of kilometers from the active frontline. It's been a long journey since their first date on that warm Kyiv evening. Behind - an experimental theater troupe they started, plays and performances they staged together and separately, endless soirées and long nights after premieres. Their lives were full - teaching, performing, loving. They got a small apartment together and they were happy.
From that apartment, they were calling their actors to cancel the February 24th performance in the winter of 2022.
The big war has come to their lives. That night, Antonina asked "Should we join in?" and Oleksandr reluctantly agreed. The next day, they were signing their names onto the volunteer sheets at a local Territorial Defence chapter. There were men and women of all ages - some looked like they came straight from work; someone had come carrying their belongings in a suitcase, a burly-looking man was wearing a cowboy hat, and one guy brought a hunting rifle.
Looking at this motley crew, Oleksandr thought to himself, "If they can do it, we can, too."
Fear of not being understood was, undoubtedly, present. "I thought to myself - there will be all these combat-ready meatheads, and who am I, a little theater teacher," Oleksandr says. But to their surprise, their status as a queer couple was met with understanding. They were open about it from the start of their deployment, and the word spread. By the time they got sent to the South after the Kyiv campaign, their commanders and fellow soldiers all knew that "there are gays" serving with them.
At the end of May 2022, their company was sent to Mykolaiv. Antonina and Oleksandr reported to the morning alignment, where a new master sergeant introduced himself. "I know there is a gay couple among your ranks", he barked. Antonina's heart fell. "I do not care! As long as you are good soldiers, we won't have any issues". He followed, "I won't tolerate any discrimination".
Without an official policy on same-sex couples from the Ministry of Defense, things like that are up to lower-ranking commanders. Some, like that master sergeant, addressed what he treated as a potential issue among his rank and set the record straight from the get-go, but most often it falls on the shoulders of people like Oleksandr and Antonina to educate their fellow soldiers on LGBTQ+ topics.
"It isn't our job to teach them," says Oleksandr. But when Oleksandr starts talking about LGBTQ community online, he faces criticism, and often from the military personnel - that he is using his uniform to propagate LGBTQ values. And that annoys him. "I would have had a much wider platform elsewhere to fight for equal rights," Oleksandr notes. "And my goal in the Army is the same as everyone else here: to win this war."
Thus, each individual experience varies depending on a commanding officer's education and prejudices. In Antonina and Oleksandr's cases, they lucked out at every stage of their service. In June 2022, they were introduced to a new commanding officer, who asked Antonina which pronounce he should use when addressing her. "It was his first question to me," Anotnina recalls. "I was stunned".
Antonina is a non-binary person who uses "she/her" pronouns. She and Oleksandr are incredibly close, although they stopped dating about a year ago. "We've been together for 10 years through fire and water," Antonina says. I am certain I will never have a tighter relationship with anyone else in this life."
They sit together in a dimly lit room like they sat ten years ago on cold asphalt listening to teenagers play music with their lattes in paper cups on that warm Kyiv evening. The active front, where they were just hours ago, is a short drive away. They will repeat that drive shortly after I leave, not as a couple, or lovers, or old friends but as two service members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces heading on another task fighting for their country and for their right to be who they are for themselves and for the generations ahead of them. Despite the difficulties they have faced, their love keeps them going. It fights for them as they fight for their country.
Love is what also kept Anna Kazhan going all her life. Anna is a medic in the 47th Brigade and someone who has gone against the grain most of her life. Her call sign, Kazhan, means Bat in Ukrainian. She likes the sound of it, but more so - the bats themselves. Anna is now 31 and has been studying nocturnal winged creatures since her early 20s - she got a Bachelor's degree in Molecular biology and biotechnology and a Master's in Vertebrate zoology. She was in her 4th semester in Gent, Belgium, studying Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystems when the full-scale invasion started. That event made her return to Ukraine and enlist in the Army, something that she would never think of doing before.
If there was a dictionary illustration for a left-wing activist in Ukraine, Anna would probably be it. Since her adolescence, she has been brewing in the leftist stew of her native Kharkiv. She took part in organizing an anarchist squat (which also helped house LGBTQ activists as well as displaced people from the annexed Crimea and the Eastern regions of Ukraine in 2014), she was a co-founder of the Kharkiv Pride, an organization advocating for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine, and she took part in organizing the first Pride parade in Kharkiv in 2019.
That first Pride was pivotal in her life. On Freedom Square in the center of Kharkiv, there she stood with some 2000 others who came to support the event. Around them, a police in riot gear and a line of trucks separating them from another group - a variety pack of right-wing crusaders from various groups and organizations including Freikorps, the National Corpus as well as Tradition and Order. "Every Pride event is used by these right-wing guys as a team-building exercise", Anna says with a dash of dark humor "they get together, meet up, hang out and show what they're capable of".
And on that day they were capable of a lot of violence. They clashed with the police and the LGBTQ activists, one teenage boy got severely beaten in a nearby park, and several arrests were made. It made splashes in the Ukrainian media, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine issued a note of condemnation, and Amnesty International typed up a public statement.
Four years later, when Anna was already in the 47th Brigade, she met Kostya, who served in her medical unit. Kostya was also on the Freedom Square in 2019, except he was on the other side of the barricades. An admirer of right-wing views, he was a part of Freikorps - a far-right group that, on that day, was fighting with the police and hunting parade-goers. Kostya and Anna talked, trying to keep a safe distance. These conversations became regular. Kostya was an intellectual guy who wrote poetry, a stark contrast with other right-wing-oriented people Anna encountered in her life and through her service.
One day, trying to sum up one of these debates, Kostya pointed to a battle map hanging on the wall of their medical headquarters. "This is the only thing that matters now," he said.
They were discussing an incident with one of the Kharkiv pride founders Anna Sharyhina who publicly spoke against renaming of a street in Kharkiv in honor of Georgi Tarasenko, who was a member of Freikorps and who was killed in action near Kharkiv in March, 2022. Then, Sharyhina posted on Facebook that Tarasenko was a known right-wing figure and violently targeted LGBTQ activists on multiple occasions. Her post also evoked a question - who should be the people Ukrainians put on the pantheon of heroes in this war, and what should be written off or forgiven to those who give their life defending their country.
It was a nuanced post that sparked a very lively but difficult discussion, dashed with hateful messages and threats, as well as words of support fr Mrs. Sharyhina. It's easy to understand her motivation - for her, people like Georgi Tarasenko were a threat to her very existence. He wasn't just a person opposed to gay marriage or equal rights for LGBTQ people - he was a violent individual who targeted her and the people she advocated for. But he also died fighting the Russians who came to invade the city they shared with the intention to occupy it and make it part of Russia, where any LGBTQ activism is now criminalized.
In war-time Ukraine, the military is a reflection of the Ukrainian society itself; it's a country within a country - with all its complexities and inner conflicts, its many voices and camps. Tens of thousands of people from all walks of life have volunteered, been mobilized and drafted in the last two and a half years. And just like in the Ukrainian society itself, LGBTQ people in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are a minority - a minority that is easier to target and discriminate against but needs to be protected.
Anna Kazhan disagreed with the Facebook post of her former colleague, with whom they organized Kharkiv Pride back in 2019. But she knows the feeling of being threatened, criticized, and argued with for being who she is. Recently, she found herself in a car with yet another sympathizer of far-right ideology on their way to visit a medical base of the Azov Brigade. Her former girlfriend worked there and arranged the visit. Anna joked that it's the LGBTQ community bringing the far-right to Azov base. They talked about issues and values. They argued and joked around.
"Next pride we'll drop a charge from a drone on you guys", the far-right guy said laughing. "We'll get the jammers installed", she rebottled. And then there was silence. They both knew that they might not live til the next pride. They kept driving.