‘Women need to be ready’: the Ukrainian city where mums and daughters are learning to shoot

Women practise with rifles in the basement of Litsey 20, one of the largest schools in Ivano-Frankivsk. Photograph: Pavlo Pyvovar

In the long, narrow basement underneath Litsey 20, a school in Ivano-Frankivsk, western Ukraine, Serhiy Korneliyevych Hamchuk stands before a row of women and lays a Kalashnikov assault rifle down on the desk in front of him.

The 10 women, aged between 18 and 51, watch attentively as Hamchuk demonstrates how to load ammunition into the gun’s magazine, sliding the bullets into place one after another with his thumb. “Dobre,” he says. “Good. Who wants to try?”