‘I lost my arm and ate dog food to survive’: The unprecedented loss of limbs in Ukraine
“Incoming!”
One word and then Gosha’s life changed forever.
The mortar exploded right next to the 30-year-old Ukrainian soldier.
If his friend, Vasian, hadn’t shouted, Gosha wouldn’t have turned. The mortar would have exploded in his face. Instead it was his arm.
“Blood was streaming like hell,” Gosha recalls.
Warped metal and broken cars in the ruins of Azovstal
It was early May last year. The two friends were at the heart of a battle that would come to define the ferocity of the Ukraine war.
“I reached for my tourniquet and gave it to him. ‘Higher, Vasian!” He tightened it. It didn’t tighten well … and then he said ‘f***, what shall I do?’ I passed out.
“When I regained consciousness, I said: ‘Vasian, finish me off, because I’m f****** done'”.
Vasian wouldn’t do it. He refused his friend’s pleas. Sixteen months on, at a small prosthetics clinic in the United States, Gosha tells a story of horror and survival which reflects a much wider challenge.
At least 25,000 Ukrainians have lost limbs since Vladimir Putin’s invasion last year.
Accurate figures are hard to verify and could be much higher.
The number of Russian soldiers to have been maimed is not known but is thought to be huge too.
Neither Ukrainian nor Russian officials are willing, officially, to reveal a figure which underlines the cost of the war.
Gosha is treated by clinician Michelle Intintoli
Read more:
In pictures: the pounding of Azovstal
The surgeon smuggled into Mariupol
Thousands of amputees
“The number is not official, and some of them are multiple limb loss,” Mike Corcoran, the clinic’s co-founder says of the Ukrainian estimate of 25,000.
“That’s a stadium full of amputees.”
In 18 months of war in Ukraine, there have been at least 10 times the number of Ukrainian amputees than Americans maimed over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
Gosha is the 39th Ukrainian soldier to come to the Medical Centre Orthotics and Prosthetics (MCOP) just outside Washington DC. We met him on the day he was first fitted with a prototype prosthetic arm. It is the start of several weeks of rehabilitation and therapy at the clinic.
Eventually, he will leave with a carbon fibre version of his missing limb.
Prosthetician Mike Corcoran speaks to Sky News
The clinicians at MCOP are experts in military prosthetics and have spent two decades at the world-renowned Walter Reed Medical Center treating American soldiers.
But Ukraine’s challenge is different. It is compounded by the intensity of the conflict and rudimentary amputations.
The battlefield first aid straps, called tourniquets, designed to be attached to the limb just above the wound to stem bleeding, are often fitted too high and left on for too long. The bleeding is stopped but the cells in the limb are killed in the process.
The consequence – a whole arm or leg will need to be removed rather than just part of it. And that process is carried out in the most horrific of conditions.
Inside the ruined steelworks. Pic: AP
‘The guys were rotting alive – it was like a horror movie’
Gosha was wounded in the battle for the Azovstal steelworks in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
The two-month siege ended on 17 May, 2022 with the surrender of the last remaining Ukrainian soldiers. Gosha was among them and taken into Russian custody.
The battle was defining in its intensity and, ultimately, its futility.
Units from Ukraine’s Azov Battalion were cornered in one small part of the sprawling plant. The soldiers slept in an underground room which doubled as the battlefield clinic.
“People were lying together, one next to the other. They amputated arms and operated in the same room we were lying in,” Gosha recalls.
“They were cutting someone’s arm off. Everybody was watching it. On the floor there was a bag full of arms and legs.”
Gosha explains how the injured lay in a long narrow room lined with rows of bunk beds, three or four high.
“The guys were rotting alive, everyone was stinking, everyone had some infection,” Gosha says.
Life inside the Azovstal steelworks seen in Gosha’s photo
After his initial amputation in the bunker with a hack-saw, he said the wound “started to fester again” so his arm was amputated at a higher point.
Two weeks later, the steelworks was captured by the Russians. As a prisoner of war, Gosha spent more than a month without running water or painkillers.
He described how the ‘orcs’ – his slang for Russians – also took the Ukrainian soldiers’ supply of bandages.
He was finally released in a prisoner exchange. It marked the beginning of a long journey which has brought him, for a few weeks, to America.
Ukrainian soldiers on a bus after leaving the steelworks. Pic: AP
‘You can’t say no’
The MCOP clinic does not charge for its treatment of Ukrainian soldiers and prosthetics is an expensive business. One arm can cost $100,000 (£81,000) and a hook in place of a hand is an additional $8,000 (£6,500). A lot of Ukrainians ask for the hook because it’s more versatile.
“You can’t say no”, says Mike.
The fortunate fraction of Ukrainians who make it here to MCOP do so with the assistance of many charities including United Help Ukraine and Operation Renew Prosthetics in partnership with the Brother’s Brother Foundation.
The plan, eventually, is to open a clinic inside Ukraine. For now, Mike and his team are shuttling back and forth to Ukraine to train locals, deliver donated equipment and conduct in-country treatment.
Gosha tries his prosthetic
“It’s going to take more than our company and me. It’s going to take hundreds of prosthetists many years to actually take care of all these wounded people, not just military, civilians as well,” Mike says.
He predicts the challenges Ukraine faces with amputations will, eventually, make it the world leader in prosthetics. But it will take time and huge investment.
The growing list of people with lost limbs will, Mike said, “have to be addressed at some point”.
The limits of US aid
The US government has supplied billions of dollars of weaponry in tranches of ‘security assistance packages’ for Ukraine. But these packages do not allow for the funding of treatment or sharing of medical resources to treat injured Ukrainian soldiers.
In a statement, a spokesman for the US Department of Defence (DoD), Lt Colonel Garron J Garn, said: “DoD has not received any specific requests to enhance prosthetic care for wounded Ukrainian service members.
“However, there are several members of Ukrainian Armed Forces currently at Landstuhl (a US military medical facility in Germany) receiving treatment, outside of specific prosthetic care. We applaud the work of various charities who are involved in getting Ukrainians requiring prosthetic care.”
Cooking dog food to survive
Colonel Garn added that $14m (£11.3m) had been “obligated to support wounded service members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for its budget in 2023”.
As Mike Corcoran and I talk, another Ukrainian arrives for his final appointment at the clinic.
Ilia Mykhalchuk is a double amputee and is ready for his final fitting of two state-of-the-art carbon fiber arms.
His story is horrific. One arm was blown off and the other peppered with shrapnel after an anti-tank rocket hit his vehicle in another defining battle of this war, in the city of Bakhmut.
The 36-year-old was then captured by Russia’s notorious Wagner Group of mercenary fighters.
“They knocked him out with whatever anaesthesia they had in the basement of a house,” Mike said.
“Basically it’s like a guillotine. They cut off both his arms and they didn’t even close them up, they just bandaged him. So it wasn’t clean; just the bone. The cut end of the bone is protruding and that makes for a harder fitting.”
The prosthetics are custom-made and can cost thousands of dollars
The scars left by the Wagner Group are both physical and mental.
“They made fun of him after they cut off both his arms. He saw torture, men being set on fire and having their fingers cut off. He’s got a lot of PTSD,” Mike said.
Watching Ilia, as the final fitting is completed, that internal trauma is clear.
Ilia Mykhalchuk with prosthetists Mike Corcoran and Jamie Vandersea
‘He never leaves my head’
Back in conversation with Gosha, more revelations which reflect the reality of this war and his ongoing trauma.
I asked about his friend Vasian – the comrade who had called out ‘incoming’ and had saved his life.
Gosha reveals that Vasian, and his pet dog, who was their companion in war were taken by the Russians and have not been seen since.
“Vasian never leaves my head,” Gosha said. “He is my sworn brother.”
Senior Sailor Spivak Vasyl (Vasian) with his dog Sofa
Gosha explained how he, Vasian and the dog, a Pit Bull Terrier called Sofa, would share dog food. It was all they could find in the sprawling steelworks. They would cook it. “It didn’t taste bad,” he says.
“We made beds for ourselves, and we put the dog between us, in the middle, and we slept like that, hugging. The dog could get some warmth. We were always together. And I promised him: “When we return back home, when I baptise my son, you will be the godfather.”
“My son is five now, he has not been baptised yet because I’m waiting for Vasian to return.”
Gosha wants to go back to the frontline. “I want to fight, if it’s possible, as a gun commander in the artillery.”
“Nobody wants to live in captivity. Russia will continue to terrorise, kill, capture, destroy. They won’t calm down until you beat the f****** hell out of them.”
With additional reporting by Eleanor Deeley, US Producer
Rescue and recovery and efforts are under way in parts of South and Southeast Asia where the number of those killed in devastating floods continues to rise.
The extreme weather last week has killed at least 366 people in Sri Lanka, 604 in Indonesia, and 176 in Thailand, according to authorities.
Rescuers are searching for 464 missing people in Indonesia, and a further 367 in Sri Lanka, after a cyclone and other storms triggered flooding and landslides in the region.
In a post on X, the King and Queen Camilla said they were “deeply saddened” to hear about devastating storms and added their “heartfelt condolences” to the families of those who have died.
Landslides in Sarasavigama village near Kandy, Sri Lanka. Pic: AP
A man wades through the flooded street, following heavy rainfall in Wellampitiya, Sri Lanka. Pic: Reuters
A man uses a makeshift raft at a flooded area, following Cyclone Ditwah in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Pic: Reuters
Hundreds of thousands in shelters in Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan authorities said about 218,000 people were in temporary shelters after downpours that triggered landslides, primarily in the tea-growing central hill country.
People were seen salvaging belongings from flooded homes along the banks of the Kelani River, near the capital Colombo on Monday.
Meanwhile, train and flight services have resumed after being disrupted last week, but schools stayed closed, officials said.
Cyclone Ditwah was the “largest and most challenging” natural disaster in Sri Lanka’s history, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said.
A landslide survivor crosses a section of a damaged road in Sarasavigama village near Kandy, Sri Lanka. Pic: AP
Landslide survivors salvage belongings at the site of a landslide in Sarasavigama village near Kandy, Sri Lanka. Pic: AP
A man uses his scarf to protect himself from the rain in the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah, in Chennai, India. Pic: Reuters
The cyclone also brought heavy rain to India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu over the weekend, with authorities saying three people were killed in rain-related incidents.
The storm, which as of 5pm UK time on Monday was about 20km (12 miles) off the coast of the state capital Chennai, has weakened into a “deep depression” and was expected to weaken further in the next few hours, weather officials said.
Amount of rainfall expected in South and Southeast Asia in the next 48 hours
Over a million affected in Indonesia
More than 28,000 homes have been damaged in Indonesia, with 1.4 million people affected by torrential rains following a tropical storm that formed in the Malacca Strait.
The country’s president, Prabowo Subianto, called it a catastrophe and pledged to rebuild infrastructure as he visited the three affected provinces on Monday, where nearly 300,000 people have been displaced by the flooding.
Rescuers search for flood victims in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Pic: AP
A flooded field in Indonesia’s West Sumatra province. Pic: Reuters
Rescuers search for victims at a village affected by flash flooding, in Agam, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Pic: AP
‘Nothing remains’
“The water just rose up into the house and we were afraid, so we fled. Then we came back on Friday, and the house was gone, destroyed,” said Afrianti, 41, who only goes by one name and lives in West Sumatra’s Padang city.
She and her family of nine have made their own tent shelter beside the single wall that remains of their home.
“My home and business are gone, the shop is gone. Nothing remains. I can only live near this one remaining wall,” she said.
Highest one-day rainfall in Thai city for 300 years
In Thailand, flooding in eight southern provinces affected about three million people and led to a major mobilisation of its military to evacuate critical patients from hospitals and reach people stuck in floodwaters for days.
In the worst-affected city of Hat Yai, a southern trading hub, 335mm (13 inches) of rain fell on 21 November, its highest single-day tally in 300 years, followed by days of unrelenting downpours.
More than three million people have been impacted by floods in Thailand
People move a car damaged by floods in Songkhla province, southern Thailand. Pic: AP
King offers ‘heartfelt condolences’
King Charles and Queen Camilla responded to the crisis in a statement posted on X and praised the work of emergency responders: “We wish to express our heartfelt condolences to the families of those who have so tragically lost their lives.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the many whose homes have been destroyed and to all who are awaiting news of loved ones missing.
“These disasters remind us of the increasingly urgent need to restore the balance and harmony of Nature.”
Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnivirakul expects residents to be able to return home within seven days, a government spokesperson said on Monday.
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The first batch of compensation payments was set to be distributed on Monday, starting with 239m baht (£5.6m) for 26,000 people, the spokesperson added.
In Malaysia there have been at least three deaths and authorities are still on alert for a second and third wave of flooding as 11,600 remain in evacuation centres.
Sir Keir Starmer has warned China poses “real national security threats to the United Kingdom”.
But the prime minister also described China as a “nation of immense scale, ambition and ingenuity” and a “defining force in technology, trade and global governance”.
“The UK needs a China policy that recognises this reality,” he added in a speech at the Guildhall in London.
“Instead, for years we have blown hot and cold.
“So our response will not be driven by fear, nor softened by illusion. It will be grounded in strength, clarity and sober realism.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer giving his speech. Pic: Reuters
Describing the absence of engagement with China – the world’s second-biggest economy – as “staggering” and “a dereliction of duty”, Sir Keir said: “This is not a question of balancing economic and security considerations. We don’t trade off security in one area, for a bit more economic access somewhere else.
“Protecting our security is non-negotiable – our first duty. But by taking tough steps to keep us secure, we enable ourselves to cooperate in other areas.”
Sir Keir’s remarks come after MPs and parliamentarians were warned last month of new attempts to spy on them by China.
And they follow the collapse of a prosecution of two people suspected of spying on behalf of China.
That case led to controversy over how the government under Labour responded to the Crown Prosecution Service’s requests for evidence.
Speech at the annual Lady Mayor’s Banquet. Pic: Reuters
At the time, Sir Keir sought to blame the previous Conservative government for the issues, which centred on whether China could be designated an “enemy” under First World War-era legislation.
Meanwhile, Sky News understands the prime minister is set to approve plans for a controversial Chinese “super embassy” in central London.
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A final decision on the planning application for the former Royal Mint site near the Tower of London is due on 10 December, after numerous previous delays.
Sir Keir is also understood to be preparing for a likely visit to China in the new year.
Since he was elected last year, Sir Keir has been active on the world stage, trumpeting deals with the US, India and the EU and leading the “coalition of the willing” in support of Ukraine.
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PM preparing for likely China visit
But he has also faced criticism from his opponents, who accuse him of spending too much time out of the UK attending international summits rather than focusing on domestic issues.
Sir Keir offered a defence of his approach, describing it as “the biggest shift in British foreign policy since Brexit” and “a decisive move to face outward again”.
While saying he would “always respect” the Brexit vote as a “fair, democratic expression”, he said the way the UK’s departure from the EU had been “sold and delivered” was “simply wrong”.
He said: “Wild promises were made to the British people and not fulfilled. We are still dealing with the consequences today.”
In his speech on Monday, the prime minister accused opposition politicians of offering a “corrosive, inward-looking attitude” on international affairs.
Sir Keir Starmer. Pic: Reuters
Taking aim at those who advocate leaving the European Convention on Human Rights or NATO, he said they offered “grievance rather than hope” and “a declinist vision of a lesser Britain”.
Sir Keir said: “Moreover, it is a fatal misreading of the moment, ducking the fundamental challenge posed by a chaotic world – a world which is more dangerous and unstable than at any point for a generation, where international events reach directly into our lives, whether we like it or not.”
He added: “In these times, we deliver for Britain by looking outward with renewed purpose and pride, not by shrinking back. In these times, internationalism is patriotism.”
Responding to the prime minister’s speech, shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “From China’s continued flouting of economic rules to transnational repression of Hong Kongers in Britain, Starmer’s ‘reset’ with Beijing is a naive one-way street, which puts Britain at risk while Beijing gets everything it wants.
“Starmer continues to kowtow to China and is captivated by half-baked promises of trade.
“Coming just days after the latest Chinese plot to interfere in our democracy was exposed, his love letter to the Chinese Communist Party is a desperate ploy to generate economic growth following his budget of lies and is completely ill-judged.
“While China poses a clear threat to Britain, China continues to back Iran and Russia, and plots to undermine our institutions. Keir Starmer has become Beijing’s useful idiot in Britain.”
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