Name: Yulia Kirilova
Age: 23
Education: Corporate Law, University of Modern Knowledge
Profession: Lawyer, soldier, volunteer
Did you know? When the war is over, Kirilova plans to buy a small house in the woods and plant roses.
Yulia Kirilova, 23, lost her husband in Russia’s war against Ukraine just a few months after their wedding in 2014. She was 20. Her life has been all about war ever since. For a year after her husband’s death, Kirilova raised money to help the army. In July 2015, she joined the army as a soldier.
The couple’s activism and love of country started even earlier. During the EuroMaidan Revolution that sent ex-President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing to Russia, Kirilova and her late husband, Danylo, joined the car protests. The newlyweds brought supplies to demonstrators and invited them to their home for showers and rest.
Her husband joined the army right after Russia’s invasion.
Army soldiers lacked even bedding. So Kirilova and her girlfriends sewed pillows for her husband’s platoon. “Oh, that wasn’t a big deal – some cloth, polyester and there is your pillow,” she laughs.
Kirilova’s husband was killed in Donetsk Oblast in August 2014, a day before his birthday. She was devastated, but kept volunteering. She joined the Volunteer Hundred charity organization and started hosting events, including a festival that raised more than Hr 300,000.
She made weekly trips to the war front and helped a dozen brigades and battalions. “It was never ending,” she recalls.
The aid they provided included everything from coffee and cigarettes to night-vision devices, scopes, medicine and clothes. Her group also delivered 400 first-aid kits and arranged donations from Kyiv supermarkets.
Yet another dispiriting setback took place in the spring of 2015 when here cousin was also killed in the accident “I was helping so many people, but I didn’t help my husband and I didn’t help my cousin,” she says tearfully.
Her brother then asked her to visit him in the Kyivan Rus Battalion, which wasn’t in active combat at the time. She did and soon joined the battalion as a soldier.
Her comrades were at first skeptical about having a woman as a soldier, but she proved them wrong and became a grenade thrower in a scouting squad.
But soon the Defense Ministry ordered women out of combat and to “appropriate positions.” She was reassigned to a medical unit and put in charge of maintenance. When the ambulance driver got sick, she took his place and started evacuating people from battlefields. She saved dozens of lives. “One had to drive very fast and very carefully, but it was impossible – the roads were all bombed, and we were constantly shot at,” she says.
Kirilova was discharged in October.
She’s seen so much blood and pain that she now has health problems and trouble sleeping. “This damn war haunts me in my dreams,” she smirks sadly. She wants to become a lawyer someday. But for now, another big fundraiser for the troops is being planned.
