The two men became friends while relearning to walk. Aleksandr comes from kyiv, Yevgen from Chernihiv. They did not know each other, did not fight together, but both lost a leg in March, a few days after the start of the war. “Aleksandr offered me to stay at his place for the time of the treatments”says Yevgen, who preferred not to give his name, just like his sidekick. “In exchange for the rent, I asked him to do the dishes and the cleaning”, blague alexandr.
Since their wounds have healed, the two fathers have been going to the premises of the Bez Ozmezhen (“without limits”) rehabilitation center every day, a small building in the suburbs of kyiv. Between the workshops for making temporary prostheses, along a corridor, the men walk and perform exercises under the watchful eye of a doctor. Since February 24, the young boss of the company, Andriy Ovcharenko, says he has received more than 50 seriously injured Ukrainians, some with several severed limbs.
First official death toll
For the first time, on Monday August 22, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Valeri Zaluzhny, gave an assessment of the losses that Ukraine claims to have suffered since the start of the war, six months earlier, stating that 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed. Andriy Ovcharenko does not know the number of amputees in the country. The authorities do not communicate these figures, “so as not to demoralize the Ukrainians”, he confides, before adding: “If people knew how many people are losing their legs and arms, no one would join the army. » The director expects to receive an influx of soldiers from the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine. Today, the majority of his patients were injured in the first weeks of the conflict.
Yevgen joined the territorial defense of Chernihiv on March 3. The northern city was surrounded and shelled daily until the withdrawal of Russian troops at the end of the month. The 35-year-old was fighting in a trench. On March 15, he found himself under a bombardment. The shrapnel tore his leg. “A friend suffered a head injury and died two weeks later”, says the shaved fellow who wears a gash on part of the face. A total of two dead and five injured. Yevgen was taken to a hospital in the West.
Aleksandr was one of the reservists of the Ukrainian army. Between 2015 and 2016, he had fought in the Donbass, this mining region in the East where the war between separatists supported by Russia and the Ukrainian army had started in 2014. On the eve of the outbreak of the “special operation of the Russian president, the invasion of his country, the 36-year-old man was then called to join the 95e air assault brigade to defend the city of Makariv, west of the capital. On the morning of March 13, “a quieter day than usual”, a tank opens fire on his position. His leg is hit by shrapnel. “I lit a cigarettehe recalls. I thought to myself that these were probably the last minutes of my life and I tried to call my parents. They didn’t answer. » The Ukrainian army ends up responding with mortars against the Russian enemy. Aleksandr is evacuated with another man, stunned.
You have 44.03% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.