Duty and a Creative Bartender: How a Civilian Woman Joined Azov

Margarita Koldanova now serves in one of the brigades of the Azov Corps. One reason she enlisted was a growing sense that volunteering was no longer enough. The other was a creative bartender. Before the full-scale invasion, the 34-year-old worked as a marketing manager for coffee shops and restaurants in Kyiv. In the months leading up to February 2022, uncertain whether she was on the right path, she quit her job and left for a jiu-jitsu camp in Barcelona. For roughly a month she had no income at all. JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. “So when the war starts, I understand that I don’t have any job at all,” she said. “So it’s like at this moment, and I don’t know what to do, or how long it would be, because everything was closed.” Margarita Koldanova, an Azov Corps service member, petting a dog. She then lived paycheck to paycheck, as many people in Kyiv have since the full-scale invasion began. In the early years of the war, Koldanova stayed in the capital and tried to contribute through volunteering and fundraising. The feeling that it was insufficient gradually hardened into a decision. “At some moment I think that everything that I do… it’s like not enough, that I could do more.” Other Topics of Interest WHO Chief Says Warehouse Hit in Ukraine A World Health Organization warehouse in Dnipro holding emergency frontline medical supplies has been completely destroyed in a Russian strike. She began asking friends from the jiu-jitsu community where someone with no military background could usefully serve. Most advised her to start from skills she already had rather than push straight toward the front line. The final push came from an unexpected direction. Before the war she had known a creative bartender named Ed in Kyiv. One day she noticed he had deleted his old Instagram photos and replaced them with images from an Azov training camp: shaved heads, the basic course, the full transformation. This did not align with her assumptions about him. In the first years of the war, she had imagined only certain kinds of people joined the army. He did not look like one of them. Ed, an Azov Corps service member, on a basketball hoop. She sent him a message. They began talking. In one of the early exchanges, she admitted she was considering enlistment and asked how he had joined Azov. The conversations continued and eventually became a relationship. Watching him and the people around him shifted her perspective. “In the army, it’s a lot of different people… different positions, different ages… If you want to join, it’s enough,” she said. Practical considerations shaped the final choice. She has an apartment in Kyiv and a dog. Relocating permanently was not realistic. She looked for a media role that would allow her to remain based in the capital. She joined the media team of the 3rd Assault Brigade, which shares historical roots with Azov but operates as a separate formation. The arrangement proved a challenge. Media work demands focus on one’s own unit, but her partner and friends were in Azov. Koldanova wanted to join her friends at Azov events and promote Azov on social media, but the latter wasn’t possible as long as she was serving in the 3rd Assault Brigade. So she decided to join Azov itself, and found an opportunity in the Lyubart Brigade, part of the larger Azov Corps structure, that also includes units such as Chervona Kalyna. The move improved her job satisfaction considerably: now she could better support her boyfriend (now husband) and promote Azov online. Azov Corps service members Ed and Margarita Koldanova. The base salary for non-front-line positions is fixed and modest – around Hr.25,000 a month ($560). Almost everyone in those roles, she says, needs additional income. She continues freelance copywriting and photography alongside her army duties. Free weekends are rare. Family, friends and being married She told her parents by traveling to Bila Tserkva and simply showing them her army ticket. Her mother had long worried that the weapons and tactical-medicine training Koldanova attended were steps toward enlistment. When the moment arrived, the reaction was quieter than expected. “I was wondering because my mom even not crying,” Koldanova said. Most of her close friends were already in the military and understood. Civilian friends often did not. Their first question tended to be about her “next plan,” as if service were a temporary contract with a clear ladder. “You don’t have like such a big plans for your future,” she says. Time is measured in shorter cycles while the war continues. Life as a military couple in the same regiment helps them understand and support each other, but it has its challenges. Koldanova and Ed are married, yet it’s an unusual marriage. When her husband returns on leave, it feels like a short vacation for him, for Koldanova, it isn’t a vacation. The daily responsibilities: the dog, the bills – stay with her. Emotional capacity is limited on both sides. He spends his days under pressure; she tries to gauge how much of her own difficult days to share. “It’s hard to try and to figure out… the right balance,” She says. Koldanova says that with Azov being a volunteer-based unit, you need to have solid motivation to join. She works in a supportive marketing role and insists that supporting roles are not secondary. In the coming months, she is expecting to complete the basic training course required of all mobilized service members, which she is eager to start, seeing it as an interesting experience, a personal challenge, and a milestone in its own right. Margarita Koldanova, an Azov Corps service member. Koldanova does not speak in sweeping future plans. Her outlook is fixed on the war and the work in front of her. Love for Ukraine and love for a former bartender led her to serve her country in the Azov Corps. Michiel Hilgeman is a Netherlands based political commentator. He analyzes the national political developments in European countries and shifts in the geopolitical landscape. He studied Policy, Communication and Organization in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and got a Master’s Degree in 2011. He actively travels to several countries in Europe, including Ukraine.