OPINION | WOMEN’S ISSUES | UKRAINE | LITHUANIA
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by Vilma Fiokla Kiurė
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The author’s recent mission to Ukraine ended with gifting to Ukraine’s defenders the car she drove from Vilnius.
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When discussing feminism in Lithuania, I like to talk about women “volunteers” in part because I am one of them. Volunteers are people who give of their time and wherewithal to actually deliver aid to Ukraine. Their activities are very dangerous, because they often go to hot spots. On December 31, 2024, one volunteer was seriously injured when a package left on the street of a front-line town exploded in his hand. In June 2024, another volunteer lost a leg after coming under fire in Pokrovsk. You might think that this activity would discourage women, but there are a lot of them among the volunteers. These are emancipated, courageous women who go to the most dangerous zones, helping to transport cars and necessary equipment to the front.
I also go on such missions, because I believe that it is the duty of a true anti-fascist to fight this evil with all my might. The Putin regime’s fascism must be defeated in Ukraine so that it does not come to our homes here in Lithuania.
When traveling to the front line, in the Donetsk region, you are greeted not only by checkpoints, but also by minefields that stretch along the road you are driving on. Signs everywhere warn of mines. You see the destroyed cities and everything that the ideology of the “Russian Federation world” brings. And you understand that you are doing what you must, that all the achievements of feminism are worth only to the extent that you can help in dealing with this modern-day incarnation of fascism.