A private military company for the first time in Russia has begun looking for women to fight on the Ukrainian front, especially snipers, the British Ministry of Defense said in the latest assessment published on Monday.

What British military experts say:

• For the first time, the Russian state-owned private military company (PMC) is trying to specifically recruit women for combat missions in Ukraine.
• The latest ads posted on social media call for female recruits to join the Borz Battalion, part of the Russian Redoubt military company, to work as snipers and unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) operators.
• Redut PEC is probably directly financed by the Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia.
• In March 2023, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that 1,100 women had been sent to Ukraine, which is only about 0.3% of its forces.
• As noted in the Redut message, they now only perform functions such as health care and catering services.
• It is currently unclear whether the official Russian military will try to follow their example and offer more combat missions to women.
• During the current conflict, women rarely participated in front-line combat in pro-Russian forces; however, there was a strong tradition of female snipers also in Soviet combat units during World War II.

The publication iStories wrote a week ago that the Borz battalion began to recruit women as combat specialists.

“At first we didn’t have women, only men. Now we have decided to try a female sniper platoon and a female drone operator platoon because women can do it too,” a battalion recruiter told IStories reporter posing as a potential recruit.

“My task as a unit commander is to prove that women are not created only to cook borscht and children.”

The Russian social network VKontakte posted an announcement about a six-month contract with the battalion with an offer of 220,000 rubles per month (US$2,300).