‘Lots of young men die on this bed, often on the phone to their mother’
Secret medical centres help ferry wounded soldiers to larger hospitals using 4x4s donated by a UK charity
FROM the town’s military hospital, we switch vehicles and drive off the main road towards the hellish fighting of the front line. In charge of us is Ruslan, the burly and cheerful deputy commander of the Ukrainian airborne brigade’s medical team. After about half an hour, we are off-road altogether.
Navigating the potholes up a beautiful ridge in bright sunlight, we see, far away, smoke rising from the hellish battle of Bakhmut. Nearer, a series of lesser smoke-plumes mark the front line. Our destination is the “stabilisation point”.
When a Ukrainian soldier is wounded at the front, stretcherbearers rush him, at high risk to themselves, to an improvised field ambulance station at the nearby evacuation point.
The stabilisation point to which it then drives is the nearest place where most shelling can be avoided.
That point is only 11 miles away, but the journey takes 40 minutes over the rough terrain.
At night, it must be conducted in total darkness to avoid attack. This causes accidents.
There is no question, as there would be with a less barbarous enemy, of the wounded being left in peace. If a red cross is painted on a building, the Russians regard it as a target.
The stabilisation point is a pretty, decrepit village house, well-hidden and unidentifiable from the dusty lane. It is without mains electricity, gas, clean water or sewage disposal. Power comes from generators. After victory, one can imagine the place as being some city-dweller’s charming weekend cottage.
Right now, it houses the stabilisation unit, 10 or so doctors, nurses, orderlies, health assistants and a cook.
As we hurry under its awning (arrivals are counselled not to stand in the open air because of the risk of drone attack), there is a brief absence of patients.
Yana, a red-headed nurse, is relaxing with a biography of Winston Churchill in Ukrainian. She tells me she has just got to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
Inside, we meet the chief doctor, Miroslaw, and Victoria, a young anaesthetist.
On Feb 24 last year, when Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Miroslaw was a doctor in, of all places, Moscow. The next day, he left for home and volunteered.
Stabilisation of the wounded is essential, because the ensuing 90 or so minutes – covering the journey to the hospital proper – could easily be fatal.
Even as it is, 60 per cent of the wounded who die, do so because of loss of blood. The most common cause of injury is shrapnel from the almost endless pounding by the Russian artillery.
It is not long before the unit’s skills are put to the test. A message from the medical chat group announces that a medium-level injury is on its way. Twenty minutes later, the field ambulance pulls up in the lane and a stretcher is borne out.
The wounded soldier lies upon it, wrapped, like some cherished present, in gold foil. This protects him from the hypothermia which shock can induce. As he is hurried past me into the house, he offers me a wry wave.
Inside, crammed into the cottage’s tiny sitting room, the team of six are on to him with astonishing speed.
Despite the man’s protests, the nurse rips the man’s T-shirt to get at the wounds.
Shrapnel, probably from an antitank missile, has hit him on the thigh, the stomach, the buttocks and a knee.
I see blood smeared on the tattoo of a naked woman which covers most of his chest. Soon his wounds are cleaned and dressed. Painkillers are administered. The doctors pay particular attention to his stomach,
‘Lots of men die on this bed ... sometimes their mother or wife or girlfriend is talking to them on the mobile as they die’
giving him a drug to control potential internal bleeding. The team seems confident he will be okay.
He tells us, however, that his comrade, who was beside him in the battle, was killed by the same explosion. Such deaths, sometimes multiple, happen most days. Within 20 minutes, the patient is ready to leave for the 30-mile hospital journey.
As he departs, he complains about the damage he has suffered: “Who is going to buy me a new iphone?”
The precious, gold-covered cargo is carried out and bumps away down the lane. As we stand briefly on the stone steps of the house, there is laughter and relief at a job well done, but when we go back in, Miroslaw points to the room just vacated.
“Lots of young men die on this bed. Sometimes their mother or wife or girlfriend is talking to them on the mobile as they die. Physically and mentally, it is hard here.”
Ruslan returns us to his vehicle and we set off down the valley. After two minutes, I realise I have forgotten my hat. Despite my protests, he swerves into a short-cut back to rescue this trivial and grimy object which I have managed to drop in the lane.
Our return trip to the hospital takes in two deserted villages, wantonly blown to bits by the Russians.
Mission Ukraine allowed The Telegraph team to witness this stabilisation unit at work.
This small British charity buys reliable second-hand 4x4s in England and sends them over to Ukraine to be repurposed at their expense as field ambulances capable of transporting two patients. The interiors are stripped and lined with galvanised aluminium. Many such vehicles are needed – their useful life in war averages only six weeks. Sometimes up to seven vehicles can wait at the evacuation point.
It was Mission Ukraine’s latest, a Mitsubishi Shogun, that got us to the military hospital. Its driver, Rose Cecil, had brought it, alone, 2,619 miles from England.
Last year, she tells me, her niece, who has assisted Ukrainian refugees in Dorset, asked her for help. Three days later, Rose set off on the first of her solitary drives east. This one is her third. “The only empty bit is the return journey,” she says.
In part, I think, Rose is motivated by the memory of her brother, Richard, who was killed while reporting the Rhodesian Bush War in 1978. Her mother, the late Marchioness of Salisbury, founded and ran the Help Poland Fund, herself driving lorry loads of supplies out to Poland after the Communist regime imposed martial law there in 1981.
Back at the hospital, Ruslan and the brigade’s medical commander, Stepan, presents Rose with a plaque and regimental badge to thank her for all Mission Ukraine has done for them.
He wants to thank Britain, too, he says. In return, Rose presents a bottle of Scotch whisky, but Stepan explains that the hospital is dry.
“Besides”, he says, “we want to keep it to celebrate the victory.”
Before we depart, there is one other ritual to perform.
On the floor of the corridor are two flags of the Donetsk puppet republic that Putin established last year.
We cannot refuse the medics’ invitation to stamp on them.