Panina has always been interested in working with dogs and had wanted a career in uniform since childhood, she told RFE/RL, but -- unlike Plaksyuk -- she never expected to find herself in the epicenter of the war. “Life had not prepared me for what was about happen,” she said. When Russia launched the full-scale invasion in February, she was in Mariupol, an Azov Sea city in the Donbas that had long been a target for Russia, working at the port checking cargo for contraband. Shortly after the first Russian missiles hit Mariupol, she was ordered to join forces defending the city's smaller steel plant, known as Azovmash, and then moved on to the besieged Azovstal steelworks. As the Russian troops were leveling the last stronghold of Ukrainian resistance, she was supporting Ukrainian fighters, cooking for them, and caring for the wounded along with other women. "They said the sight of us gave them hope," she recalled.
