You have no right to speak lofty words about your country, because you abandoned your children” — these words echoed in my head like gunfire

Anna “Ruta” Reshetnyak, a combat medic with the engineering support group of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, is one of many mothers in uniform who, for their decision to defend the country, became targets of judgment and painful reproach. She joined the army to protect her children, yet society often responded with condemnation instead of support.

Between art, teaching, and war

Today Anna is a mother of two sons and a daughter, a Ukrainian defender who served in the Avdiivka and Borova sectors, and who is now temporarily in reserve. She is originally from Pavlohrad, Dnipropetrovsk region. In civilian life, she was a teacher and an artist. She founded an art school-studio called MRII in her hometown, which still operates today. Many of her paintings and personal belongings remain there.

Anna joined the Armed Forces in the fall of 2023, after nearly a year of preparation. Before signing the contract, she created her last civilian work — a painting titled “Dreams During the War.”

“It’s me and my boys in anxious night visions. It’s the women and children of Bucha, Hostomel, Irpin, and many other towns who fell into eternal sleep. It’s all of us — civilians in our homes, where our sense of safety was irreversibly stolen. I painted it over a year — with pauses, through tears, drained after just a few hours of work. That painting stayed in my studio,” she recalls.

A volunteer on the front line — and a target of reproach

Anna joined the front as a volunteer. She explains that she could not stay aside while so many of her friends and acquaintances were already fighting:

“I realized that the war wasn’t ending. Which meant — there weren’t enough of them. So I had to go too.”

But instead of support, she met judgment.

“I kept hearing: ‘What about your kids? You’re abandoning them. What if you die?’
A kindergarten teacher told me I was ‘making a terrible mistake.’
Neighbors wrote to me on social media: ‘You’re not a mother, you’re nothing.’
One even threatened to report me to the police and the draft office for ‘abandoning’ my children.

I cried. I raged. Between duties, I looked at photos from home.
And yet there were other words too — rare but radiant: ‘You’re there so my son doesn’t have to fight,’ ‘You’re brave, thank you.’ You cling to those little rays of light, and somehow it becomes easier to keep moving forward.”

“Among my acquaintances, only the lazy ones haven’t asked: ‘But what about the kids?’

“The more duties you take on, the more rights you earn”

I want my boys to grow up with no need to fight in trenches, but also to know how, if it ever comes to that. I want them to see an example in me.

My children are being raised with responsibility from an early age. Because the more duties you take on, the more rights you earn. The right to shape your country belongs only to those who take responsibility for it, who share in its pain and struggle.

If someone believes they are the ‘best citizen’ and contributor to Ukraine just by the fact of giving birth — I have bad news. At least in my reality. Because the enemy has already come to kill you and your children. And hoping someone else will fight instead of you is pointless. You won’t be able to hide.”

“Those words hit me like bullets”

Anna recalls one of the most painful moments:

“It was Easter Sunday. That morning we learned my comrade had been killed. Later that day, I received another message. The brother of my ex-husband decided to remind me what a ‘worthless mother’ I was.

‘Your kids have already forgotten what you look like,’ he wrote. ‘You have no right to speak lofty words about your country because you abandoned your children. You’re not home…’

Those words echoed in my head like gunfire. Suddenly, the crushing exhaustion of the last days fell on me like a weight — sharp, burning, physical. I broke down sobbing. I will never forget it.”

“At war, there are no ‘men’ or ‘women’ — only people”

Anna is convinced that gender has no place in measuring worth on the battlefield:

“I don’t think it makes sense to view men and women as fundamentally different in terms of who is ‘fit’ to serve. At war, as everywhere, there are just people. Some panic, others stay calm. Some feel sick at the sight of blood, others don’t. Some are patient, others impulsive. All of them are normal.

What is not normal is to assign one gender the ability to run endlessly through mud and blood with a rifle, and the other — to tremble and hide with children in a basement.”