Documentary filmmaker David Belton and his team specially built a video booth where ordinary Ukrainians told in their own words how their lives changed when Russia invaded. Over the course of a year, the booth traveled around to various cities in Ukraine, but also to other European cities where Ukrainians have moved. The people were allowed to enter the booth and speak freely to the camera, without any questions being asked.
They bought their own weapons
In a Ukrainian town, two women visited the video booth. They did not give their real names, but instead go by the aliases ‘Fenix’ and ‘Sultan’. They also did not want to show their faces but remained masked.
In the film, they say that they had to learn to shoot on their own.
– We fully prepared together and bought weapons. And then we drove off. We found people who taught us sniper shooting, says ‘Fenix’.
The Ukrainian Defense Force accepts women, but Fenix and Sultan say they were not given the opportunity to join, so they chose to train themselves.
See War witnesses on SVT Playor Tuesday 28/2 at 22:30 in SVT2.