After completing her seventh grade of school in 1939, she went on to attend a two-year nursing course in Zaporozhye, graduating in 1941.

[1][2] Kravets joined the Red Army in July 1941 after the start of the Second World War, initially working in military hospitals.

After leaving the military she returned to Zaporozhye, but did not stay there for very long, having to live in Vladivostok in 1948 because her husband was sent there.

She lived in Dnepropetrovsk until 1951 and later Nikopol, before she and her family settled in Zaporozhye again in 1954 - their first child Valery was born in 1949 and then their daughter Irina in 1951.

Despite complications of her wounds from the war, she led an active life, visiting East Germany as part of Soviet delegations on several occasions, as well as giving lectures to schoolchildren, soldiers, and prisoners.