In this photo taken and released by the Ukrainian Defense ministry press-service on July 2, 2021, Ukrainian female soldiers wear heels while taking part in the the military parade rehearsal in Kyiv, Ukraine. Ukraine's defense minister is under pressure from members of the government over the decision to have female military cadets wear mid-heeled pumps in a parade. A joint statement from three Cabinet members, including Minister of Veterans Affairs Yulia Laputina, said “the purpose of any military parade is to demonstrate the military ability of the army. (Ukrainian Defense Ministry Press Office via AP)

From the Associated Press . . .

Ukraine’s defense minister is under pressure from members of the government over the decision to have female military cadets wear pumps with heels in an important parade.

“The purpose of any military parade is to demonstrate the military ability of the army. There should be no room for stereotypes and sexism,” said a joint statement from three Cabinet members, including Minister of Veterans Affairs Yulia Laputina.

The statement followed last week’s announcement about the footwear in the parade planned for Aug. 24, the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.

It noted that about 57,000 women serve in the country’s armed forces and “have proved their worth not in heels, but with machine guns.”

Defense Minister Andriy Taran on Saturday said he had instructed officials to look into whether “experimental” shoes — ankle boots, according to news reports — could be worn by the female cadets instead of the pumps with heels.

The military offered no explanation as to why female cadets were wearing a different type of shoe than male cadets.

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88 COMMENTS

  1. Ahhh, Europe. The land of progress, and the envy of American leftist snowflake cucks.

    • Oh those Ukee’s…..I hear the well trained com’mando gals make great mail-order brides!

      • Look up camo cuties. A fair number of Ukrainian service women, along with Israeli, Swedish, American, and other nations.

  3. Make the men wear heels also, for true equality.
    That should strike fear in the hearts of the ruskies. Coming soon to the USA…

  4. I like the Russian Parades where the ladies wear skirts and High Heels/Boots, etc. as that’s part of their dress uniforms. It is likely these ladies are going to be wearing their dress uniforms at the parade and are only wearing heels with BDU’s for “Parade Practice”.

    For Russian Ladies, fast forward to the 11:40 mark to see what I mean. I don’t know about the Ukrainians, but the Russians know how to do a parade.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrWRaQo4dkg

    • Whatever else one may notice about the Russians – everyone is in full dress uniform, complete with all the medals, awards, swords, epaulets, badges of rank, braid, tassels, and whatever other shinies might be justifiable. No one is dressed in battle fatigues while sporting some silly bauble. Not a Russophile, but I have to respect those Russkies for being pragmatic.

    • The Russians are serious about making Russia great again. I believe their patriotism for their country is much stronger then Americas.
      As Putin said, “Our boarders are open for Russians. ” Your not going to be able to be a Russian citizen and fly the flag of another country and protest Russia. Well not for long anyway.

      • Im neither Russian nor a comm-symp, but I respect Putin for what he is, more so by far than what we have saddled ourselves in the current admin.. Those Russians are very patriotic, and obviously love a parade….
        That said, when 1,033 you are, look as good you will not…

  5. This is 100% completely appropriate and relevant for a blog about guns.

    Just sayin.

    • Agreed. I slept in this morning (a big, fun-filled family fireworks extravaganza last night), checked in to TTAG, saw this, and thought “why?”

    • If you can’t look at that picture and see guns, then you should check for a pulse.

  6. Is it like a balance exercise? If you can march in heels than a 12-miler ruck is no problemo? Let me see them run a obstacle course, that might be more impressive. Better yet, Pugil stick training, no helmets..

  7. I don’t know what the big deal is. They’re in a parade. They’re not on the battlefield.

    As a female Navy vet here, I would have loved getting to wear heels. What lady wants to look all clunky and man-like in combat boots or the ugly dress shoes part of the uniform? Not me, anyway. It’s nice to see a country letting women be women.

    • You can’t really be serious. Tell me I’m just missing the sarcasm and/or the humor. Women in heels are little more than decoration. Parade, you say? Why mix a dress shoe with fatigues? Either the women are showing off their military readiness, or they are showing off their shapely behinds, can’t really do both at the same time.

      Also, I’m a Navy vet. Tell me, in reality, when and how might high heels be useful aboard ship? Plan of the Day sez, “Force 5 gale and 40 foot seas, temperatures 20 below zero, severe icing expected, uniform of the day will be Dress High Heels!” Disney might take that for a movie theme, ya think?

      • The universal suggestive grin was a bit unsettling, and I didn’t notice it on the men.

      • Correct- high heels aren’t useful aboard a ship. Yet, the Navy does prescribe high heels for dress uniforms in women. What the fuck is up with that, huh?

        I never did a parade in anything but full dress whites or blues. i was in a special high-visibility unit, so was in an unusually high amount of parades. So I’m real, real familiar. Never did a parade in working blues or whites.

        Not sure why your panties are in such a twist. Also cant tell if you’re a man or a woman, this making it more difficult to guess at your twisted panty problem.

      • A public parade has absolutely nothing to do with demonstrating military readiness. It’s purely for show.

        The question is how you want the troops to LOOK. If you want them to look battle-ready, you don’t have the women wear heels. If you don’t want people to scratch their heads and say “what the hell were they thinking?” then you probably shouldn’t mix mid-heel pumps with combat fatigues.

        Dress uniforms are much the same. Nobody’s going to do any real work in one, let alone fighting, so they might as well look as good as possible on the people wearing them. If it’s women, then sure, skirts and heels…why the heck not?

        These are choices of style and perception, not military effectiveness.

        • Exactly, Ing. Which is why “Paul’s” righteous indignation at my comment is silly.

      • “Force 5 gale and 40 foot seas, temperatures 20 below zero, severe icing expected, uniform of the day will be Dress High Heels!”

        On an FFG that would have been most welcome.

        • The Navy’s version of dress high heels
          barely qualify for heels at all, in my opinion.

          I get your point, though 😉

    • Almost like they aren’t fighting and haven’t been trained by us unless I guess ma squid here trained them
      Ya wanna parade in heels carry a pencil. You wear combat uniforms and weapons then appropriate footwear is required.

      • Wow, you guys are really testy about the high heels.

        What’s wrong- do your wives all wear nothing but butchy combat boots and man shoes, while secretly you wish you could tell them you desire they were women who want to wear heels? Interesting hostility this all-woman vet has brought out in you men.

        • “What’s wrong- do your wives all wear nothing but butchy combat boots and man shoes,…”

          Steph, they probably keep them barefoot… 🙂

  8. Nothing says obsurdity like being obsurd.

    Demonstrate lack of stereotypes and sexism by being stereotypically sexist.

  9. I’m guessing the defense minister just listened to The Beatles’ Back in the USSR, and couldn’t help himself. “Those Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the West behind…”

    • Rumor via the Zvekolnik Telegraph suggests that the bureaucrat who came up with the high-heels idea has taken up new quarters somewhere east of Verkhoyansk…

  10. “The military offered no explanation as to why female cadets were wearing a different type of shoe than male cadets.”

    I notice that their hair is much longer and their breasts are much larger than their male counterparts. Has the military offered an explanation for this phenomenon??

  11. They seem to all be wearing the same type heel, but they couldn’t standardize the hosiery?

    • And we should intervene in any Ukraine/Russia conflict? Did this scare Putin or arouse him? I miss that ILL Russian dude who ranted and raved a few years ago…

      • “I miss that ILL Russian dude who ranted and raved a few years ago…”

        He’s back, he slipped up, that’s who ‘dacien’ is.

        It’s the same weird quote-thing he does… 😉

      • Ukrainian/Russian spiffs have been going on since before Boghdan Khmelnytsky, there were reasons that many Ukrainians sided with the nazis during ww2. NONE of our business! As far as Crimea goes, it was paid for LONG AGO in Russian blood, sorrow, and treasure fighting Tartars, Turks, and Mongols. Same can be said for eastern Ukraine, Donetsk-Luhansk and the DonBas Republic.

  20. As a devoted leg man and connoisseur of the female body i have to admire these ladies. If i was fighting beside them and had seen their gams in parade my defensive hormones would go into Mel Gibson mode and their survival would go up by 50% . Yep ! I’d die for a great set of legs .

  24. Better pray that Gen. Silly Mark Milley doesn’t find out about this, or he’ll have the entire US military prancing about in heels.

  25. t shirts should be white tank tops with bare midriff
    trousers should be shorts
    finger and toenails french manicured
    the ponytails are good to go

    • Deffo need to strap the girls down in a good running bra if you’re a lady in those armies. Whatcha wanna bet running bras aren’t allowed/aren’t part of the uniform? Just plain old underwire bra, so the Generals all get to see some bouncing titties at least once or so a year when they review the troops.

      ‘Cause if they’re anything like the suspiciously-angry-at-women-in-heels guys at the top of this comment thread, those generals definitely aren’t getting the chance to see bouncing titties on their own.

    • That’s MY thing! Oriental wimmins in short-ish skirts and JACKBOOTS! Love them thumpin’ gams! YOW-zah!

  27. High heels, and a camouflage string bikini .
    Dont shoot till you see the white of their thies.

  29. One could ask… historically, who decided what men or women should be wearing- and for what reasons?

    As far as military dress (non-combat) is concerned, there’s no surprise hearing the obligatory argument in support of seeing female soldiers dressed “attractively”, but it does leave one wondering about the rationale behind traditional male military dress– to which audience was the “attractiveness” being directed?

      • Well, when you’re in the military, being asked what you think about something, especially dress, doesn’t happen. They don’t ask the men either what they think about their shoes.

  31. Heels or not, can you imagine all of these women PMSing at the same time?
    Even they didn’t have guns the bitching and moaning would be insufferable.
    I would run away and hide.

    • Smart man! And you may know that if a group of women live around one another for long enough, their periods will synch up. So if it’s a barracks situation, these ladies absolutely will all PMS at the same time.

      Maybe that’s part of the display to deter enemies! “We’ve got thousands of women here who all get their periods at the same time.” The enemy will stay away.

  32. Ignominious amount of testosterego on display here…
    it’s quite telling (but not surprising).

  33. honestly wondered if this was a babylon bee.
    for show parade, heels is (are?) a good start. tough and feminine, well presented without straying from the implication that when the boots go on the smiles disappear.
    works for me; i applaud the continued distinction while we succumb to gender blending.

  34. The way I was taught to march (many years ago) was to dig your heels in first as you step along. Works best with brogans. Having never worn high heels myself, I can only imagine that if one were to dig high heels in, it would have a nasty effect on the ankles because of leverage.

    P.S. I always despised marching in parades, since they usually happened on my day off.

  36. The question I have is why they have numbers on their chests. Is it because the unit commander can’t form them up in ranks unless they know what rank they are in by the number on their chest? Even with civilians alighting from the buses in the middle of the night the DIs at Parris Island were able to get the civilians in ranks. “Herd UP!” “You four. form a row.” “You four, form a row behind the first row.” Etc. Etc Etc. In about five minutes sixty civilians who had never been in ranks before were suddenly in ranks and files sheep dogged by only 3 D.I.s. Of course there always a few who needed extra instruction usually provided by a #10D applied to the posterior.

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