She regularly travels to school and shooting days, and in her free time helps Ukrainian fighters.

Valentina learns to shoot from a machine gun / photo Facebook Averyanov Valery

A 79-year-old woman from Mariupol recently joined the Territorial Defense Battalion , where she learns to shoot and assemble and disassemble a machine gun.

Suspilne writes about this  .

She regularly travels to school and shooting days, and in her free time helps Ukrainian fighters. 

The woman said that she had worked as an economist all her life. They started volunteering together with their daughter: since 2014, she has been helping servicemen on the front lines.

“She fried pies, cooked borscht, soups. Who drove to the front, someone drove to the hospital,” said Valentina Konstantinovskaya.

The woman and her like-minded people continue to help the Ukrainian defenders: weave protective nets, sew balaclavas.

This fall, Valentina enrolled in the territorial defense battalion, where journalists photographed her during the training camp. After that, the photo was scattered on social networks and even got on the covers of many foreign publications.

“I am a citizen of my country, I am Ukrainian, and Ukrainians have a gene of resistance, a gene of freedom, victory. That’s what I went with. I have to help in any way I can. Or maybe I’ll have to shoot somewhere and sometime. I don’t know how it will turn out,” the woman said.

Recently, her dream came true: she learned how to assemble and disassemble a machine gun. The woman will practice with weapons in the future. She assures that she is ready to defend the Ukrainian land and repulse the enemy.

(C)UNIAN 2022