Ania Karkatchova grew up in the heart of an industrial region in eastern Ukraine, dotted with coal mines, slag heaps and smoking chimneys, but she never imagined one day working underground herself.
Yet she is now one of hundreds of Ukrainian women taking on new roles beneath the surface of this war-ravaged country, replacing the men who left to fight Russian forces on the front lines.
“Of course it’s hard. The air is not like in the mountains, is it? », Declares Ania Karkatchova, 31, interviewed by AFP in a mine located 400 meters deep in the Dnipropetrovsk region (center-east).
“But since there is a shortage of guys and we have this situation in Ukraine, we have to help somehow,” she adds.
A historic change in Ukraine’s labor law, allowing women to take jobs previously reserved for men, was introduced weeks after Russia’s martial law invasion two years ago.
It highlights the radical social changes in Ukraine brought about by the war, which saw tens of thousands of women join the armed forces, as well as the need to keep a struggling economy afloat.
“You have to try everything”
Ania Karkachova fled to the Dnipropetrovsk region from the eastern mining region of Lugansk, now occupied by Russia, and her ex-husband is among the fighters on the front.
Moving with his children from one mining region to another seemed natural to him, and the prospect of working in a mine not so foreign.
“And so, I came to try to work. In life, you have to try everything. I like that,” says the young woman.
DTEK, the private Ukrainian energy company that operates the site where Ania Karkachova has worked for a year, asked not to specify the location for security reasons.
According to Inna Kobozeva, the mine’s human resources manager, out of a total of around 2,800 employees, some 600 are now fighting in the army.
More than three dozen employees have been killed in the war with Russian forces since 2014, when Moscow-backed separatists seized swaths of eastern Ukraine.
Since the Russian invasion in 2022, at least 183 women have started working underground in this mine, a company press officer told AFP.
In total, around 500 women work on all DTEK mining sites, or 15% of the staff, according to the same source.
But the arrival of women at the bottom of the mine has not always received a favorable reception, particularly from the men.
“At the beginning, they were pessimistic. They couldn’t even believe it. But then they changed their minds,” recalls Inna Kobozeva.
” Essential “
“It was an oddity,” says Dmitry, 33, an operator of the mine’s underground transportation network, who, like other people interviewed, did not give his name.
But when one of his colleagues deployed at the front was replaced by one of the new female recruits, his skepticism disappeared.
“They work as well as men. A lot of guys are missing. Yes, their help is essential,” he now says about underground miners.
Even before the war, the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy noted a labor shortage, a problem exacerbated by the departure abroad of some six million Ukrainians who fled the conflict.
A situation which is not expected to improve because the army hopes to mobilize some 500,000 additional men to reconquer the territories taken by Russia.
“We have not stopped recruiting. I wouldn’t say the situation is critical, but we are short of staff,” admits Inna Kobozeva.
Several of the women interviewed by AFP hope that the men fighting on the front will return after the war to resume their old jobs.
“We went to work to help our husbands. They will come back and return home,” says Tetiana Tarasova, 36, a machine operator whose companion is fighting in the Donetsk region (East).
Victoria, 33, also employed in the mine’s underground transport network, considers it important that women help in times of national crisis, even if underground work is “a man’s job”, she believes.
“I understand that our women are strong and can handle anything,” she says, before acknowledging that only the circumstances of the war pushed her to work underground. “I probably wouldn’t have agreed to do it if the moment hadn’t forced me to.” »