"I took a deep breath. Even the air is different outside prison," said Tequila, sitting in her soldier's uniform on a metal-framed bed in a military barrack.
She is one of more than 100 female convicts in Ukraine who have chosen to swap prison time for parole and military service.
Their arrival on the battlefield comes as the Ukrainian Army faces a dire shortage of soldiers to hold off invading Russian troops.
Ukraine has struggled to replenish the ranks of its army -- depleted by three years of full-scale war. Recently, Ukraine has introduced a new plan that paves the way for adults below the conscription age of 25 to join the military.
Tequila, who asked to be identified only by her military call sign, did not reveal how she ended up in a prison in the northeastern city of Kharkiv.
"Let's put it this way: I was sentenced for what I'd done. I paid with two years of my life for my unlawful acts," she said.
Tequila said she spent about six months deciding whether to join the army and admits to having doubts and fears.
Her fitness levels were poor -- she had sewed garments all day in prison -- and the military training was tough.
She now serves with an assault unit on the front line.
"My main role is comms," she said. "I relay commands from one radio to another. The guys are in position, the commanders somewhere else. I'm in the middle relaying commands."
"I had doubts, but even if I was ordered to go on an assault mission right now, I'd go. The most important thing is that we're treated like normal people. They even feel sorry for us," she added.
Dmytro Andreyev, a spokesman for the State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine, said more female prisoners are now swapping prison for the army.
"More than 7,000 former prisoners are fighting. Among them, more than 100 women are currently in combat units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It's a paradox that women are choosing to swap a penal institution, where there are three meals a day and warmth, for the trenches where there is a direct threat to life."
Convicts On The Front Lines
Brux is an operations duty officer and communicates with drone operators, mortar and machine gun units, and combat groups on the front line.
Brux, who also requested that she be identified only by her call sign, was released into the army after volunteering to fight.
"I was always ready for the worst-case scenario, but we were told that women wouldn't be sent on assault missions. I've always tried to learn well and digest all the information in order to be ready."
The unit commander, whose call sign is Hedgehog, said the female prisoners don't lack motivation.
"Freedom, the opportunity to change something in their life," he said. "Here, they can suddenly become a hero after prison, build a career, learn something new. That's what motivates them."
Other female prisoners are waiting to join up.
Halyna, 36, is serving five years for theft at a correctional facility in Ukraine's central Poltava region.
Halyna, who only gave her first name, works there as a cook and is sitting in white coveralls and a hat in the facility's kitchen.
"I want to go to war because my son died at the age of 25, and three months later my husband died on the front in Bakhmut," she said, referring to the eastern Ukrainian town that was captured by Russian forces in 2023.
"I could do two jobs [in the military]," said Halyna. "I studied to be a doctor for five years at medical school and graduated in Kyiv. I worked with an ambulance crew and studied to be a pastry chef, too."
"I want to go to defend Ukraine and our future children, to fight, to help the guys," she added.
The deputy head of the correctional facility, Anastasia Vodinchuk, maintains they put no pressure on anyone to join up.
"[We] say for example, 'Today, such and such a brigade arrived. Whoever wants to join the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under a contract, please come up.' They talk. We're just there to sort out the logistics."
