Blood and fear: with military doctors near Bakhmut

The armored vehicle in charge of extracting them stops at the sound of artillery fire. He drops by a group of Ukrainian reconnaissance soldiers whose mission goes wrong in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine.

Most of the injured can still walk. But some people lose their balance and stumble at the entrance to a bomb-scarred building that serves as a field hospital, very close to the front where the fighting is going on.

Where wounds have to be treated or uniforms worn, torn apart to allow people covered in dirt to breathe better.

Some people hold on to their guns to stay upright, some people let themselves fall to the ground with their backs against the wall in exhaustion.

If he is wounded but alive, no one wants to say how many comrades he has lost on this part of the front, which has seen some of the bloodiest fighting for months.

His unit was probing Russian defenses when it was detected and targeted. Enemy tanks started firing at very close range.

While waiting for the investigation, some people talk to each other and remember the attack and the chaos they had to endure, waving their arms and swearing.

Teams of doctors, some still wearing slippers, quietly remove shrapnel from the wounded.

– “Revenge” –

“I have reasons to take revenge on the Russians,” says surgeon Kirill Orlov after treating a soldier. “I mean real revenge. I have lost a lot of acquaintances and friends,” adds the Forty.

The field hospital is located in a ghost town that has been emptied of its inhabitants. Roads are strewn with debris and the air is shivering from the incessant explosions.

The doctors take turns facing the Russian positions and smoking outside near the open door. With danger looming, they rarely step outside.

Suddenly, some people put on bulletproof vests and others rush to save the soldiers in armored vehicles.

Rifles rest on the corners of the walls, walkie-talkies blaring out the sounds of war.

Private Sergei Podolyan is sitting alone in the hallway. His palms are sweaty.

“It’s something new,” says the 27-year-old, his face bearing no scars from his first day at the front.

“We trained at a shooting range and got used to the explosions a bit,” he mutters under his baseball cap. “But not like that…”, he sighs.

– Return to battle –

Medics have been working less and less since the Ukrainian military abandoned Bakhmut’s defenses in May, trying to squeeze into it from the northwest and southwest.

“We have three times fewer cases (of injuries) than in February or March,” says 42-year-old doctor Dmitro Urakov. “Now we fight more intelligently,” he said before raising his rifle and resting.

But Ukrainian attacks on the banks of the Bakhmut still take place against Russian defenses and landmines.

Wounded soldiers think of nothing but to keep fighting.

“They want to go back there,” says nurse Galina Slobodyan, smiling sympathetically after she bandages a soldier’s arm.

The latter strongly rejects the idea of ​​going for treatment to an actual hospital, away from the front. The caregiver said, “I can’t say no to them.”

The 23-year-old was working as a hairdresser in Poland when Russia invaded Ukraine 17 months ago. She immediately returned to her country, when millions of others hurriedly left.

– “Kill a Nurse” –

“You live abroad, make money, but what’s the point?” asks the young woman with the tattoo on her neck. “I wanted to be useful.”

Once most of the injured are treated, the doctors allow themselves some rest, their eyes glued to their mobile phones.

The former hairdresser jokes around with the young Sergei Podolyan in an attempt to ease the tension of the novice soldier.

Staring into space, Dr. Orlov sits by the operating table, in heavy silence.

A new medical team will soon return to “ground zero” – the epicenter of the fighting – as Ukrainians call it – to rescue more wounded.

With the risk of being targeted by Russian troops.

“It’s not like World War II, when you had the Red Cross and they weren’t shooting at you,” Dr. Orlov said.

“On the contrary, they shoot. For them, it’s one main goal: to kill a nurse,” he says.