The footage that emerged on social media earlier this week shows the Azov Batallion female soldier in a darkened bunker singing a song.
The 20 khvylyn publication identified the girl as 21-year old Kateryna ‘Ptashka’.
A native of Sosnivka village near Shumsk, the girl was a bright student with an artistic bent. Kateryna finished a music school in Ternopil where she would often perform in different student theatrical productions and joined local drama theater company Suzirya.
Two years ago, Kateryna moved to Kyiv and got a job at Riders motocycle school. At about the time, ‘Ptashka’ developed an interest in history and got politically active. She took part in rallies, and even joined a human rights group.
In 2021, after getting a paramedic training, the girl went to war zone in Donbas to help the Ukrainian military. She never told her parents of her decision. Calling her parents from the front-line, she would tell she worked in a hospital, though parents soon learnt the truth.
Now the brave girl is among the group of Azov Batallion fighters cheering them up with songs in their stand against Russian aggressors in Mariupol.