RUSSIANS PREPARE FOR WAR WOUNDED
Mass medic drills as US has ‘frank’ crisis talks
RUSSIAN troops are training to treat badly wounded casualties if the Ukraine crisis escalates, as plans grow to deploy hundreds more Western troops to the region.
Military doctors and medics took part in exercises for a large-scale evacuation and the treatment of shrapnel and bullet wounds.
The drill included 1,200 military police officers who would be used in an occupying force as Russia increasingly appears to be preparing for an attack.
A Russian Interfax statement on the drills confirmed: “Military police officers, under the supervision of military doctors, performed resuscitation procedures, both on simulated sick servicemen and on special mannequins.
“Military police officers in conditions
simulated combat performed evacuation of wounded servicemen, reception and screening at a medical facility, provision of first aid to the injured, as well as performing surgeries to save critically wounded people.”
The exercises came as UK Foreign
Secretary Liz Truss warned Vladimir Putin to “desist and step back from Ukraine before he makes a massive strategic mistake”.
Speaking from Australia, she said that an “invaof sion will only lead to a terrible quagmire and loss of life, as we know from the Soviet-afghan war and conflict in Chechnya”.
The UK already leads a 1,200-strong battle group in Estonia but sources say the MOD is considering bolstering the presence in the Baltic states with “hundreds” more troops.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held “frank” crisis talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva yesterday.
He later said: “In my meeting, I stressed that Russia has two choices: diplomacy and de-escalation or massive costs to Russia. Our strong preference is to pursue the path
of diplomacy.”