b. c. 1988
Andriana Susak-Arekhta
Assault soldier, veterans’ leader
On paper she was a seamstress; in fact she was an assault soldier fighting to free the Luhansk region. Andriana Susak-Arekhta volunteered for the war in 2014, then helped found the Women Veterans Movement so that women in the army would no longer be “invisible”.
Key accomplishments
- Volunteer from 2014: assault soldier in the Aidar battalion, junior sergeant
- One of the women featured in the documentary “Invisible Battalion” about women at war
- Head of the Women Veterans Movement; started the Alleys of Memory for fallen women defenders
- Order For Courage, 3rd class
- Returned to the army in 2022
The seamstress who went on assaults
Andriana Susak’s military papers listed her job as “seamstress”. In reality she was an assault soldier in the Aidar battalion, fighting to free the Luhansk region. Many women were listed that way at the time: the law didn’t allow them to hold combat posts, so on paper they held non-combat jobs while in fact they fought.
From Kosiv to the front
Andriana comes from Kosiv in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. She took part in the Revolution of Dignity, and in 2014 she volunteered and went east to the war zone. There she fought in an assault group and became a junior sergeant. She holds the Order For Courage, 3rd class.
No longer invisible
Andriana is one of six women featured in “Invisible Battalion”, a documentary about women at war and after it. The others are Olena Bilozerska, Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, Daria Zubenko, Oksana Yakubova and Yuliia “Bilka” Matviienko. The project campaigned for women to be officially allowed into combat roles, and in 2018 that happened. The same year Andriana helped organise the first gatherings of women veterans that grew into the Women Veterans Movement, which she went on to lead. The movement stands up for the rights of servicewomen and veterans, and plants Alleys of Memory for fallen women defenders across Ukraine.
Back in uniform
In 2022 Andriana went back to the army. And, according to the Women Veterans Movement, her military ID once again said “seamstress”. So her story is still about the same thing: women fight alongside men, and that should show not only on the battlefield but on paper too.
