A pastry chef from Bucha spends her days making cakes — and her nights shooting down Russian drones.

Lyudmyla Lysenko joined a volunteer air defense unit after returning to a destroyed city in April 2022.

By day she holds a mixer. By night — a machine gun.

She now commands a mobile fire group in the “Bucha Witches,” a unit created in 2024 to hunt Shahed drones over Kyiv region.

Every shift starts at 8am.

They check weapons, count ammo, inspect vehicles. When the alarm sounds, they deploy fast, set up guns, track drones, and open fire.

Not every target enters their range.

Then they switch roles — track the drone, calculate direction, pass coordinates to the next unit. One chain, multiple teams, one purpose: shoot it down.

Her first kill: no fear, just adrenaline: “A drone flies at you to kill you. Your job is to stop it.”

She runs the team and carries the risk.

After every engagement, she checks if everyone is alive. One mistake — and bullets can hit civilians.

She trained from zero.

Courses by Azov veterans taught her shooting, medicine, trenches. Civilian skills help too — navigation, azimuth, discipline.

At home, she returns to cakes.

But fewer orders now. “I can’t just care about flowers on cakes when there’s a war. Someone won’t fight instead of you. We all have to be ready.”

Source: Tymofiy Milovanov