A former soldier who joined a Ukrainian battalion of voluntarily employed paramedics and doctors has detailed the “intense” experience of traversing no man’s land.
While rescuing wounded soldiers from some of the most perilous positions in the battle zone, the rescuer and his Hospitallers Medical Battalion teammates have come under Russian fire.
Before joining the team, he served as a machine gunner in the Swedish military. The team’s members frequently put their lives in danger to deliver critical medical assistance.
The 25-year-old, who is on his third deployment with the Hospitallers, is based in Adviika, a frontline city being assaulted by Vladimir Putin’s forces in the eastern Dontesk region.
He previously served in an anti-sabotage unit in the Swedish air force and has also provided training to the Ukrainian military. Speaking under his team name of ‘Thor’, he told of the switch to becoming a driver, paramedic and close protection guard with a ‘medevac’ team amid heavy fighting in the Donbas.
‘The transition has been quite smooth,’ he said. ‘My previous role as a machine gunner came with training and a mindset to be brutal, for want of a better word. Now with the Hospitallers, I have the privilege to be able to save lives, which is the opposite of my previous role.’
Arresting pictures of the Hospitallers’ work show volunteers on a specialised medical bus in the Dnipro region, which lies around 100 miles west of Adviika.
A soldier named Oleg is shown wearing a head net bandage above extensive facial scars as he waits to be evacuated on one of the specialised buses operated by the non-state group.
Thor, who is on his third deployment, told Metro.co.uk that the demands of working in a warzone were becoming routine but his team was nonetheless encountering new hazards.
‘The pressure and challenges come in waves,’ he said. ‘This is my third deployment and my team and I have established routines. But there are always new challenges with every deployment
‘Just the other day to get to our position where we waited for the alarm to receive patients we had to cross a “no man’s land” area where both sides sit and have fire observers to hit the area with artillery if enemies cross it. Our medical and our other casevac teams had to cross this area
‘So we had to keep maximum speed and were forbidden to stop.
‘We were going at a steady 130km until we crossed this area which took 10 to 15 minutes. It was very intense as we could see and hear impacts on the field close to the road.’
The Hospitallers have provided medical and first-aid training to more than 800 volunteers since Russia launched the full-scale invasion 13 months ago. Supported in part by funds raised in the UK, the group currently has more than 500 volunteers and 80 crews working to save lives.
Commander Yana Zinkevich was named on the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world in 2022. She became a medical volunteer after leaving high school and founded the organisation in 2014 at the outset of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine.
The fundraising mission is continuing as Russian forces and the Wagner mercenary group continue to try and wrest the eastern city of Bakhmut from Ukrainian control and target the country with missiles.
Dozens of lives are saved by crews every day, according to the Hospitallers.
Thor joined after the full-blown assault began and is part of a team comprising Ukrainian and international volunteers who operate under the Hospitallers’ motto of ‘for the sake of every life’.
The battalion says its crews witnessed the outcome of the atrocities in Bucha at a time when other organisations considered the city too hazardous to enter.
‘Ninety per cent of our patients have shrapnel injuries and other injuries from indirect fire,’ Thor said. ‘They occasionally have wounds to the lungs from hits to the side and traumatic head injuries from blasts
‘We also have very common injuries of soldiers who stay in their trenches for longer periods of time and sustain blast after blast but don’t sustain any shrapnel injuries, just the shockwaves.
‘After a period of time, the soldiers experience light concussion and have symptoms such as nausea, dizziness and light confusion. They need to be evacuated for rest and evaluation at hospital.’
Despite his military background, the Hospitaller has found it difficult to witness the impact of the war on Ukrainian recruits and civilians still in frontline areas, including elderly residents.
‘The worst part is seeing mobilised soldiers with minimum training and no proper equipment,’ he said.
‘They have high morale and will finish their mission with what they have.
‘If we have a calmer rotation we try to give them medical training and with our donations from the West we are able to give out equipment like tourniquets.
‘On a previous deployment, we gave out machine gun pouches to a machine gun squad. The other worst part is seeing civilians so close to the front. You can on occasion see children walking around in the villages.
‘A lot of older people don’t have anywhere to go and if they have a place to move they often don’t as they have lived their entire lives on this farm or house and refuse to flee because this is their home and birthplace, which I sympathise with.’
The risks were gravely underlined in July 2022 when Hospitaller Natalia Frauscher, a Ukrainian volunteer who had been living in Austria before returning to help her homeland, died in a bus crash near the frontline.
Hundreds of mourners attended the 47-year-old’s funeral at St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv. A new medical evacuation bus has been named ‘Avstriyka’, as she was known, in her memory.
Thor spoke in a week when the UK Ministry of Defence reported that Russian forces were still trying to advance on Adviika despite having suffered catastrophic losses of troops in the Donbas.
Separate analysis released on Tuesday by the US Institute for the Study of War showed significant fighting around the city and to the north at Bakhmut, which has become the focal point of the war.
But Thor was unequivocal when asked about the reward for facing mortal peril on a daily basis.
‘The best part is saving the lives of the Ukrainian heroes and defenders,’ he said.
‘There’s nothing more satisfying than a successful rescue.’