what motivates a woman to take up arms? if it will not be for me a target, i will be a target for them. the battle against sexism and propaganda on the frontline... they ask me, am i a wife of some commander or am i a cook? ..and the challenges they face on their return. how did you tell your daughter that you were going to the frontline? i didn't tell my daughter about this. we've travelled to ukraine to meet combat women who've become the faces of the war on both sides of the frontline. russian media call them nazis. ukrainian — heroes. these are the real stories of two female snipers and a special unit sergeant who joined the frontline in ukraine after the russian invasion.

my name is andriana. i am a soldier, servicewoman. a female soldier in the special unit of the ukrainian armed forces. russian media says andriana was killed, describing her death in graphic detail... russian newsreader speaks. ..and accusing her of being a ukrainian nazi. we found andriana in ukraine in a hospital. we can't disclose its location for her safety. she's not surprised by the russian news. they published that i am without legs and without hands. yes, and then i was killed by them. they are professionals in propaganda. andriana, like many other ukrainians, joined a volunteer battalion when russia invaded ukraine back in 2014.

she spent a year with the aidar battalion, which, like many of the others, was subsequently subsumed into the official army. cheering, chanting after the ukrainian army liberated kherson, andriana was injured. her unit did not have an armoured military vehicle and were using a civilian car when they drove over a land mine, providing little protection from the blast. despite her injuries and russian reports, she's preparing to return to the frontline. i am alive and i will protect my country. slava ukraini, heroyam slava.

this is another story, but a very similar one. hundreds of articles in russian label evgeniya as a ukrainian nazi. here she is, describing herself in her own words.

before the full—scale war, evgeniya ran a jewellery business. shejoined the army when russia invaded in 2022. speaking ukrainian. i was told stories about iryna, a female sniper acting as a commander of an all—male unit.

in the middle of the counteroffensive, she's agreed to speak to me from the battlefields in donbas... artillery fires. ..but we lost connection. what does it feel to be a woman on the frontline? it's hard. do you remember the first moment when you just arrived? they said, "what are you doing here? you must go in kukhnya." he speaks ukrainian. gunfire. battling through the stereotypes has been a common experience for all combat women we spoke to. gunfire. they ask me, am i a wife of some commander or am i a cook?

because they even don't think about that i can be a soldier. in 2014, i was a seamstress by the documents. in 2022, i'm not a seamstress by the documents and they try also to protect me against others when they saw that some soldiers from other units said something... ..in sexist manner. in the society exist strong opinion that girls go - to serve in the armyl to find your husband. i've come to visit a charity helping ukrainian frontline women. it's run by female volunteers. when a woman go to the army and want to serve, _

she can be a combat medic. it is ok. she can be a psychologist, - even a female sniper, it is ok. but female in command, it's very rare _ their data is based on confidential personal accounts of service women who share with the volunteers what they are not comfortable discussing with anybody else. that includes abuse they may have suffered — psychological in most cases. we can't even imagine i the scale of this problem because not every soldier, female soldier wants- to talk about this. here is our showroom. sometimes ukrainian female soldiers have to fight for even some basic rights. like to be dressed. the additional stress ukrainian female fighters have been facing is the uniform and here is why. this is a jacket for ukrainian female soldier. looks quite nice.

it's light. it's a summer edition. 0fficial pixel colour. the only problem with it is that, at the moment, it doesn't exist in ukrainian army. and to get one of those, you have to get it from volunteers or to buy it yourself. all other ukrainian female staff has been given male uniform, including underwear. what about the bra? no, they don't get any bra. they don't get any bra. - that's quite stressful. yeah, they get the same that - men get in the army, and men... ..don't get bras. hanna malya is the deputy defence minister of ukraine, the second woman to hold this position during the war. she explains the female combat

uniform is farfrom the biggest problem the army faces, but they're getting there. with the timeframe of soon, vague and unspecified, volunteers have taken it upon themselves to start sewing uniforms for frontline women. at least as much as they can fundraise for. the biggest challenge, they say, is military boots for women of small sizes, and bulletproof vests. despite the lack of specialist equipment, women are not shying away from what being on the frontline involves. suddenly a message

arrived from iryna. for her fighting skills, evgeniya earned the nicknamejoan of arc.

she says, despite prejudice against women on the frontline, some believe there are certain combat roles where women perform even better than men. we've managed to get a connection with iryna. she's got a rare moment of peace on the battlefield.

she says establishing her authority took strength and resilience. but once she proved herself on the ground, her female leadership style has helped to keep spirits high. she points out to me, though, that the image of female snipers has been heavily glamorised.

when you are on the frontline and when you see a target, how do you feel about it? is it a target or a person? it depends on the situation. sometimes it's a person because they are people,

but if it will not be for me a target, i will be a target for them. it's like. . . it's enemy. and it's very hard for me to understand that i'm such a person that can't see people when i see a target, but my life during this nine years is about war. iryna is hiding in a vehicle to speak to us in an effort to keep her location secret so as not to become a target herself.

how many injuries did you have? 0h. back. it's...it was hard. like injuries. i have head injuries. i have broken arm without nerve and without muscles.

she speaks ukrainian. andriana has suffered so many injuries after driving over a landmine at the frontline, that it is easy for her to list them for me in ukrainian. but she tries to find some solace in the friendship and support offered by other veterans, or, as she calls them, her sisters and brothers in arms. war, they say, doesn't recognise gender, nor does it spare either sex many of its consequences. some soldiers confided in me that they fear severe injuries more than death. here is why. we've been allowed to join a special smoking space for the injured soldiers here in the military hospital. a rare moment of peace for those who have

been through a lot. one more problem they've been telling me about is the cost of rehabilitation programme. it takes thousands of dollars per each soldier per month and can last for over half a year. and each soldier has to fundraise it themselves. the length and cost of mental rehabilitation has not even been estimated yet. while the total death toll in ukraine varies depending on the source, the most conservative estimate reaches thousands of lives. andriana's phone book has turned into a list of the dead.

how many friends did you lose? now i'm not counting because i've lost more than 100 friends. i even don't know how many phone numbers i need to... ..like, to delete or something like that. in the heart of kyiv here on the independence square, there is a tribute to those who lost their lives in the russian invasion of ukraine. each of these flags has a name on it. how many of those killed on the frontline are female defenders isn't clear. there is no exact statistics and the impact on the women who survived the frontline is just starting to emerge. how much support they will need long—term and how the government and the society are able to meet those

needs remains to be seen. but what is clear right now, what we are seeing today might be just the tip of the iceberg. the exact number of combat casualties cannot be provided due to sensitivities of information during wartime, ukraine's minister of defence told us. but we managed to obtain data suggesting that at least 93 ukrainian servicewomen have been killed in action since the russian invasion. over half a thousand more have been injured. these are findings of the armwomennow charity. the bbc cannot verify them independently. she speaks ukrainian. andriana shows me pictures, which she doesn't want anybody else to see. photos of her child. the biggest suffering the war has caused to the special unit soldier is the impact it's had on herfamily.

she hasn't held her son for over seven months. two days ago, i was talking with him and he said to me that, "mum, remember when we were a family and when we love each other?" so after two years of absence of me and dad, he tried to remember a period when we were a family and we love each other. and i tried to explain him that we now are family and we love each other, but the period is such. she had taken him to safety in february 2022, before joining the war�*s frontline. she wanted to secure him a peaceful future in his native country, not having to risk his life fighting like his parents. they took my best life,

i think best years of life when i could be travelling and be happy and build a career and had a dream. they... they even took my dreams because now i don't have them. now they took the childhood of my baby. i'm so sorry about that. no, it's ok. it's not you, it's the russians... ..and only them. evgeniya has an older daughter. she doesn't want to be filmed. just like andriana, evgeniya joined the frontline after taking her child to safety. the war separating them for three months. and then another three months

apart with little connection. evgeniya says she didn't want to upset her daughter, but on her return home, joan of arc suddenly faced another battle — for the love of her child. evgeniya says she managed to win her daughter back, and even to find love in the middle of the war. but what looks beautiful on screen came at a high price in reality. evgeniya says she paid for her moments of happiness with increasingly targeted attacks by russian trolls. now she's a wife waiting

for her husband to return from the frontline. 18 months on from russia's invasion, there are 60,000 women serving in the nation's armed forces, the ukrainian minister of defence told us. including 5,000 female soldiers on the frontline. andriana is preparing to return to them to continue her fight. we are losing our best people. they are losing not best russians. if i see ukrainian flag in crimea, in donetsk and luhansk, then maybe... ..i will try to think about them, like about people, but not a target. it's a sentiment shared by iryna.

evgeniya named her baby daughter athena, after the greek goddess of war and wisdom. she doesn't want to return to the frontline right now, feeling that her currentjob is looking after her newborn. do you want your daughters tojoin the army when they grow up? no, i don't want. i don't want. my daughter like a princess. saving children from the war and fighting was the main motivation to join the frontline for all female soldiers who we spoke to. evgeniya adds she hopes this

war could be stopped by wisdom. if not by russian men in charge, perhaps by their women. hello. 0n the other side of the atlantic, a major weather

story is going to be developing during wednesday, because florida is bracing for the arrival of hurricane idalia. this storm has been strengthening, moving northwards over the very warm waters of the gulf of mexico. it's going to make landfall during wednesday in the northwest of florida with a combination of dangerous winds, a life—threatening storm surge, with the potential to cause catastrophic flooding. we will, of course, keep you up to date with that. here at home, a much quieter weather outlook for wednesday. sunny spells and scattered showers. most places getting off to a fine start. a little bit of mist here and there that will tend to lift and clear, and then a lot of sunshine around. but shower clouds will bubble up through the day. a scattering of showers to take us through the afternoon, the odd heavy one. but there will be some big dry gaps in between. temperatures ranging from 15 degrees in stornoway and lerwick to 19 in london, maybe 20 somewhere in the south east corner. but those temperatures will

drop once again under clear skies during wednesday night. the early hours of thursday, though, will bring outbreaks of rain in across the south west of england, wales, perhaps northern ireland, turning milder here by the end of the night. but where those clear skies hold on, yes, it will be rather chilly to start thursday. now, on thursday, we'll see this band of rain pushing its way north and eastwards. southern parts of england, wales, the midlands, northern ireland, seeing some of that wet weather. much of eastern england staying dry. much of northern england, too. and scotland should have a fine day with some spells of sunshine. temperatures north to south, 1a to 19, maybe up to 20 degrees. now, some showery bits and pieces of rain may still be with us on friday, but increasingly things will be turning drier. there will be some spells of sunshine. those temperatures typically in the mid to high teens, the low 20s for some. and as we head into the weekend, well, actually it looks as if high pressure is going to build across the uk and where we see high pressure, that tends to mean

fine and settled weather. so, yes, as we move through the first few days of september, the weather is really going to be settling down. there will be some good spells of sunshine through the weekend. the vast majority will be dry and it's going to feel a little bit warmer as well. bye for now.

$z/startfeed. live from washington, this is bbc news. macro one are set to make landfall on the florida gulf coast with authorities predicting it may be catastrophic sloppy we are live on the ground. the us commerce secretary is in beijing this week we take a look at what her

visit means for us china relations. a dramatic rise in the number of ukrainian deaths in the war in ukraine according to estimates from us officials. we're tracking the potential for destructive life—threatening winds in florida as hurricane idalia, now a category 2, barrels towards the sunshine state. winds and rain are already whipping across the coast in some parts of the state as forecasters warn the storm is "extremely dangerous." it's expected to make landfall early wednesday, likely reaching category 3 force as it hits. a potentially life—threatening storm surge of up to 3.5 metres or 15 feet above ground level and destructive waves are expected to slam the coast. the purple on this map shows what areas can expect more than a 12—foot surge. evacuations and preparations for the storm are under way. the worst of it is expected

to hit the more sparsely