"It's in my blood, I can't do otherwise": the story of a policewoman who survived combat action in Mariupol and Bakhmut

Staff Sergeant Alina, alias Subaru, joined the ranks of the National Police’s Storm Battalion in 2019. She witnessed the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion in Mariupol and later helped evacuate injured people from Bakhmut and other settlements in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. 

Source: Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has told Alina’s story. 

Details: Prior to 2014, Alina studied medicine and worked as a nurse.

Later, Alina was inspired to join the National Police by the example of her uncle and brother. She chose to work at the dog training centre in Odesa Oblast because, as she admits, she loves dogs. 

"After several years of service as a dog handler, in 2019, Alina joined the special forces of the Odesa-based Storm unit. And since then, she has been constantly travelling on rotation to Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts," the Interior Ministry said. 

Alina recalls being in Mariupol during the early days of the full-scale invasion. 

"Going back home was my first thought at the time. What we saw there was very hard [to deal with]. But we survived, we managed, we came back," the defender said, sharing her memories. 

Alina checked cars at checkpoints with her colleagues in Mariupol and later performed similar duties in Bakhmut. 

"Sometimes we’d help to pull people out from under the rubble and evacuate them to safer cities," she says. 

Alina's medical training and previous work experience came in handy, as during her service she sometimes had to provide first aid – bandaging wounds and transporting injured people to safer places. 

"The scariest thing was to see how quiet and peaceful it had been, and how everything changed in the blink of an eye. People running, grabbing their children, driving away in their cars, dying. It was so hard for me, as a mother, to watch this," Subaru recalls with tears in her eyes. 

Alina has a mother, two brothers, a daughter and three Cane Corso dogs waiting for her at home. The defender says that she always feels supported by her daughter, who was sometimes unable to conceal her anxiety during phone calls while her mother was in Bakhmut. 

"When I was in Bakhmut, she [Alina's daughter – ed.)] would call me, crying. I’d say, ‘Hey, don't upset me,’ but she knows what I do [for a living]. My daughter is great," Alina says. 

When asked about her dreams, Alina says she wants Ukrainian children to be spared the horrors of war and for Ukrainian defenders not to die. Alina herself plans to continue serving in the unit, but she is upfront about wanting to "have a little rest" first. 

"I’ve been at war since 2019. It’s sucked me in. I believe we have to protect our country, our children, and our parents, so I will fight to the last. 

I guess it's in my blood, I can't do otherwise," Subaru says. 

Earlier, UP.Zhyttia told the story of Vitalii, a border guard from the Sea Guard who returned to duty after 20 months in Russian captivity.

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