Mariia Volia, 31, a radio specialist now serving within the forty seventh Brigade within the Donetsk Area close to the jap entrance, has spent 9 years preventing for her nation. She believes so strongly in Ukraine’s survival that she legally modified her final identify to the Ukrainian phrase for liberty.
However as a lesbian, she — and different LGBTQ troopers — don’t qualify for a similar rights and advantages as heterosexual troops.
Volia and her fiancée, Diana Harasko, 25, are unable to marry or register a civil partnership in Ukraine, the place the regulation doesn’t acknowledge same-sex relationships. This discrepancy poses an pressing concern for the couple: If Volia is killed or wounded, Harasko is not going to obtain advantages just like the spouses of straight troops. Harasko additionally can not make emergency medical selections on Volia’s behalf or resolve particulars of her funeral if she dies.
“I would like to have the ability to marry my fiancée and in case one thing goes to occur to me, I need to be certain the state will handle her,” Volia stated.
Russia’s battle has propelled Ukraine ever nearer to Europe. Ukraine’s survival relies on its ties to the West — and its picture as a bastion of democracy at whole odds with Russia’s authoritarianism and conservative social values. However for LGBTQ+ Ukrainians, the fact is extra difficult.
LGBTQ+ people can serve overtly in Ukraine’s armed forces. However a number of legal guidelines that may advance LGBTQ+ rights in Ukraine, together with one that may broaden hate crimes definitions to incorporate discrimination primarily based on sexual orientation and gender id and one other that may enable same-sex civil partnerships, have stalled in parliament. Ukraine’s Protection Ministry declined to touch upon the unequal therapy of troopers, saying it was a problem for parliament. A spokeswoman for the ministry stated that the ministry created an workplace for defense of servicemen’s rights to handle alleged circumstances of human rights violations within the armed forces.
In the meantime, LGBTQ+ troops recurrently face harassment inside their army items, on-line, and even on the streets of main Ukrainian cities, advocates and troopers say.
Final 12 months, a transgender soldier was violently attacked by a stranger whereas on depart from the entrance within the western metropolis of Lviv.
Volia got here underneath such intense on-line harassment after popping out on social media final 12 months that she tried suicide in jap Ukraine and required therapy in a psychiatric hospital.
Final Friday, whereas in Kyiv on temporary depart from her place in jap Ukraine, she stated she was encircled by anti-LGBTQ+ protesters in entrance of Kyiv’s Metropolis Corridor after flashing her army ID and urging them to help her proper to marriage.
After they shouted at her to return to the entrance, she replied: “Can I even have just a little break from that?”
Such altercations depart LGBTQ+ Ukrainian troops feeling like “they don’t know what nation they’re preventing for,” stated Maxim Potapovych, communication supervisor for LGBTQI Militaries and Veterans for Equal Rights, an advocacy group. “They usually don’t see that they’re protected.”
Mounting anger over these inequities motivated Harasko and Volia to march on Sunday of their first-ever Pleasure parade.
The march, held in central Kyiv, embodied the battle: Police allowed solely 500 individuals and permitted them to march simply 100 meters, citing safety considerations. KyivPride organizers stated in a press release that “the police overestimated the dangers and truly remoted” the marchers.
As soon as the group dispersed, far-right demonstrators flooded the streets to protest LGBTQ+ rights in their very own parade.
“It’s a very good reminder that Ukraine is at battle however preventing for values — and preventing for our joint values, and positively variety and equality are key amongst,” stated Gaël Veyssière, the French ambassador to Ukraine who was certainly one of many Western diplomats to take part in Sunday’s march.
Ukrainian troopers “will need to have the identical rights, together with for his or her household and family members — whoever their family members is perhaps,” Veyssière stated.
Only a few months in the past, marching joyfully in a Pleasure parade — regardless of how brief the gap — would have appeared inconceivable to Volia.
A local of the now-occupied southeastern port metropolis of Mariupol, she joined the Ukrainian military in 2015 and got here out in 2022, after she was practically killed defending her hometown.
“I really was near dying a pair occasions — not even simply as soon as — and after we had been retreating I noticed I’ve to just accept myself and stay freely about my sexuality,” she stated.
Rising up in Mariupol, she by no means felt she had the selection to be herself. “Mariupol is a conservative metropolis,” she stated. “There’s no delight like in Kyiv — you possibly can really even be hit in your head for being open, and that’s the minimal.”
In late 2023, she agreed to put up her popping out story on a TikTok account for LGBTQ troopers. That’s when the harassment began. First, her commander informed her to take down the put up. Then strangers piled on.
She and Harasko linked on-line across the identical time, and their romance, like so many others throughout wartime, moved shortly. Inside days of assembly within the jap metropolis of Kramatorsk final November, Harasko proposed — presenting Volia with a easy silver ring with a small diamond embedded on high.
However when Harasko returned to her house outdoors of Kyiv and the web harassment continued, Volia went into an excessive melancholy and swallowed 50 anti-anxiety tablets. She informed Harasko, who alerted Volia’s commander, who then dispatched medics to seek out her.
Emergency IV drips helped save Volia’s life, and he or she later spent a number of weeks recovering at a psychiatric hospital.
She was discharged with a brand new perspective on her harassers, and he or she quickly switched to a brand new brigade. “I’m not afraid anymore,” she stated. “They gained’t achieve success in pushing me out of this world.”
On Sunday morning, she wearing her camouflage pants, a military inexperienced T-shirt and army boots and stood on the entrance of the parade, Harasko by her facet. Underneath morning rain, the 2 ladies pressed their foreheads collectively, beaming as the group chanted behind them. “Kyiv Kyiv Kyiv, Pleasure Pleasure Pleasure!” and “Russia Is a Terrorist State!”
A drag queen sporting blue and yellow angel wings and a standard Ukrainian flower crown marched with a megaphone between the rows of uniformed troopers. Civilians held a banner that learn “Arm Ukraine, Make Pleasure in Mariupol Doable.” Rainbow flags flapped within the wind above the group, alongside Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flag and others for NATO and the European Union.
“Our most important message was ‘Arm Ukraine Now,’” Potapovych stated. “We now have lots of of queer individuals within the armed forces that may’t be at this Pleasure, as a result of they’re now within the entrance line.”
Vahe Sukiasian, 32, a former army surgeon, stated he was marching for individuals who couldn’t as a result of they’re residing in Russian-occupied territories or deployed.
Being on the first Pleasure march since earlier than the invasion spurred blended emotions, he stated. “You are feeling that you just belong, and you’re feeling that folks round are your individuals,” he stated. “However in fact on the again of my thoughts, we have to do not forget that first we have to win the battle.”
Dmytro, 27, a soldier who’s recuperating from a foot damage sustained in a ballistic missile strike attended together with his boyfriend. Dmytro, who spoke on the situation that he be recognized by first identify in line with army guidelines, stated Pleasure was about displaying Europe “and largely Ukrainians that we’ve got this aspiration to be a part of the democratic world.”
The march ended inside minutes, however for Volia — who will return to her place on jap entrance later this month — it felt like a coup.
“Despite the fact that it was very brief,” she stated, “I believe it was extraordinarily essential for us to be seen.”