“You took my brother [to the war] — and he died! Aren’t you ashamed? Let the boy go! Let him go!” Women in my native city of Lviv shout as they try to free a young man being forcibly mobilized by recruitment officers and police. There is a deeply personal motive behind scenes like this — behind women stepping in to protect other women’s husbands, sons and brothers from forced draft. For them, this is not abstract politics. It is personal loss. One has lost a husband. Another, a son. Another, a brother... They know what that loss feels like. They know the hole it leaves behind, because they still carry it with them. And they do not want another woman to be condemned to the same grief. So they step forward. They defend someone else’s husband. Someone else’s son. Someone else’s brother. These women are among the true heroines of this war. They are its human face — in a war that has stripped far too many others of theirs.