Senior Sergeant Dima, medic of the 81st Airmobile Brigade of Ukraine, in his field hospital bunker Photo: Colin Freeman for The Telegraph
In this all-out war, the medics themselves are in the line of fire. Medical vehicles on the front line not only do not display their red crosses in a conspicuous place, but also remove them for fear of becoming a target. Instead of using ambulances, medics transport the wounded in armored SUVs. They are expensive, but provide better protection and move better on the rutted dirt roads around Bakhmut, a muddy sea after weeks of summer storms.
“We already have armored vehicles from generous donors from the West,” said Stepan, the commander of the medical unit, as he drove along the swampy forest road to the field hospital. The bulletproof windshield already had two large cracks from an artillery round that might otherwise have killed the passengers. “The problem is that we are losing equipment in combat, so President Zelensky keeps asking for more. I say this because I know that people in the West sometimes ask where all their donations go.”
Most of Bakhmut was captured by the Russian Wagner mercenary group in May, giving the Kremlin one of the few victories in the 16-month-long conflict. Now that Wagner has been disbanded after a failed coup attempt in Moscow, Ukrainian forces are trying to take advantage of the disarray in Russian ranks. On Monday, Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Anna Malyar said that the fighting around Bakhmut had intensified and that “there is a struggle to seize the initiative.” /> Dima stands over the body of a soldier who died from his wounds. Photo: Colin Freeman for Telegraph
The field hospital is about three miles from the front line, where the sound of incoming and outgoing artillery can be heard constantly. The medics live in the basement of a vacant house, part of which was destroyed by a Russian artillery shell last month. Except when they go out to collect the wounded, they spend all their time underground. Even the use of a wooden outdoor toilet on the street is fraught with danger: a shell recently tore off its roof.
“Shells fly back and forth,” Dima grins, when a series of Russian shells rumbles somewhere in the vicinity of the village. “It's like playing badminton.”
“Sew me up and I'll be back.”
In a war dominated by long-range artillery duels, most wounds come from explosions and shrapnel, not firearms. . However, many victims treat even a serious injury as a minor inconvenience.
“There are some who are more worried about leaving their iPhones, and others who just say, ‘Sew me up and I’ll be back,’” Dima said. Thanks to advances in prosthetic limb technology today, soldiers may even be optimistic about losing limbs. “We had a commando who lost his leg, but he took the news well,” added the unit’s deputy commander Ruslan. “He said prosthetics are very good these days.”
From time to time, doctors treat captured Russian soldiers, which is a severe test of their Hippocratic oath. Dima shows on his smartphone a photo of a tattoo of a Russian victim – a skull embossed on top of a swastika. “They have such tattoos, but they always claim that it is us, Ukrainians, Nazis,” he said. “However, we must remember that our own soldiers are also being held captive, and if we want to exchange prisoners, we must treat Russian prisoners well.”
Deputy Commander Ruslan in a hospital set up in a bombed-out village. Photo: Colin Freeman for Telegraph
Around 4 am, two more wounded arrive at the field hospital. One was lightly wounded, the other had a leg cut by artillery fragments. It soon becomes clear that he can no longer be helped. His corpse is zipped into a black body bag and left in a makeshift morgue.
“There was no reaction from him,” Dima said. “No eye contact, no pulse, nothing.” Doctors also do not react very much – they are too used to watching other young people die in front of them. “There are no thoughts in my head yet,” Dima said when asked how he felt. “I'm happy for the other guy who survived, but how else? Well, this is war.”
At 6 am, it's time to jump back into the armored car and leave. For 16 hours in the field hospital, two people were seriously injured, one died. And this seems to be on a day when nothing much happened.
“On days when we have few casualties, this usually means that neither side attacks each other,” adds Ruslan. , as it passes a 10-foot-deep shell crater. “You can tell it was just a normal day.”
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