World

‘I lost my arm and ate dog food to survive’: The unprecedented loss of limbs in Ukraine

Published

1 year ago

September 20, 2023

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“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.

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.

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.

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.

‘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.

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.

‘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.

“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.”

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 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.

‘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.”

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

World

Israel checking reports of hostage Shiri Bibas’s body being handed over

Published

9 hours ago

February 22, 2025

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Israel checking reports of hostage Shiri Bibas's body being handed over

Hamas says the body of hostage Shiri Bibas has now been handed over, according to the group’s Al-Aqsa TV channel – as the Israeli military says it is checking the reports.

Israel said on Thursday that Ms Bibas was not among the four bodies handed over on Thursday as part of the ceasefire agreement, instead receiving an “anonymous body without identification”.

The failure to hand over the correct body caused outrage in Israel, and prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to vow that Hamas “pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation”.

Follow latest: Israel claims Hamas killed child hostages with their ‘bare hands’

In a short statement, the Red Cross confirmed it had received human remains and transferred them to Israeli authorities.

The statement did not specify whose remains were believed to be in transit.

Dr Salem Attalah, deputy secretary general for the Palestinian Mujahedeen Brigades, said it handed over Ms Bibas’ remains to the Red Cross.

The militant group is thought to have been holding the mother and her two boys, Kfir and Ariel.

Hamas previously claimed there was the “possibility of an error or overlap in the bodies” which may have been caused by Israel “targeting and bombing the place where the family was with other Palestinians”.

Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, later said “unfortunate mistakes” occurred and also suggested Israeli bombing had mixed the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinians.

He added in a statement: “We confirm that it is not in our values or our interest to keep any bodies or not to abide by the covenants and agreements that we sign.”

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “Following the reports regarding Shiri Bibas, they are currently under review. IDF representatives are in contact with the family.”

Ms Bibas was kidnapped with her sons – four-year-old Ariel, and nine-month-old Kfir – from the Niz Or kibbutz during the group’s terror attack on Israel in October 2023.

The IDF confirmed the bodies of the two boys were positively identified on Thursday. However, it claimed the children had been murdered by Hamas with “bare hands”.

Hamas however claimed Ms Bibas and her children were all killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023, near the start of the war.

It comes ahead of the next round of hostage releases on Saturday – the final one during the first six-week phase of the ceasefire agreement, which came into effect last month.

The hostages due for release are Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al Sayed and Avera Mengisto.

According to the Hamas prisoners’ media office, Israel will be releasing 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Saturday, adding to the hundreds already released.

It also comes after Israeli defence minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to intensify operations in the West Bank after a series of bus explosions in a city near Tel Aviv.

Two of the blasts were in the city of Bat Yam on Thursday night, and a third was reported in the nearby town of Holon. No injuries were reported.

World

Hamas names six Israeli hostages to be released on Saturday

Published

21 hours ago

February 21, 2025

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Hamas names six Israeli hostages to be released on Saturday

Hamas has named six Israeli hostages who are set to be released on Saturday while Israel is expected to release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire agreement between the parties.

The hostages due for release are Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto.

According to Hamas’s prisoners media office, Israel will be releasing 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Saturday, adding to the hundreds already released since the ceasefire took effect last month.

The release of the hostages on Saturday is the final one in this phase of the Gaza truce deal.

Mr Mengisto and Mr al-Sayed are civilians who entered the besieged enclave of Gaza a decade ago and have been held there since.

Israelis who survived being held prisoner in Gaza, where a powerful bombing campaign has left much of it destroyed, have been released in small groups since the first six-week phase began last month.

The start of negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire is expected in the coming days.

Israel and Hamas have been at war since the latter, a militant group ruling Gaza, carried out a massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and took 251 hostage.

The latest list of hostages set for release comes amid heightened tensions between the parties after Israel claimed the body of hostage Shiri Bibas wasn’t actually hers and it had instead received the remains of an “anonymous body without identification”.

Hamas responded that Ms Bibas’s remains appear to have been mixed with other human remains in what it claims was an “Israeli airstrike”.

Her body was meant to be handed over on Thursday alongside the bodies of her two children, who the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed they received.

The body of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted, was also returned.

The Bibas family has become a powerful symbol of the 251 Israelis kidnapped on 7 October 2023 – not least because Kfir was the youngest taken.

The children’s father, Yarden Bibas, was released on 1 February as part of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

Since the start of the war in October 2023, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

World

Hostage’s body not returned as remains ‘mixed’ in rubble, Hamas says – with Netanyahu warning group ‘will pay’

Published

21 hours ago

February 21, 2025

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Hostage's body not returned as remains 'mixed' in rubble, Hamas says - with Netanyahu warning group 'will pay'

Hamas says the remains of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas appear to have been mixed with other human remains in what it claims was an “Israeli airstrike”.

Israel said the body handed over by Hamas was not Shiri’s, saying it had instead received the remains of an “anonymous body without identification”.

Israel claimed today forensic evidence showed Shiri and her two children were murdered in captivity by Hamas. Sky News has asked the IDF to provide evidence for their claims, but they have refused to comment further.

The Palestinian group claims Shiri and her children were all killed in Israeli airstrikes near the start of the war.

Ms Bibas was kidnapped with her sons – four-year-old Ariel, and nine-month-old Kfir – from the Niz Or kibbutz during the Palestinian militant group’s incursion into Israel in October 2023.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it received the bodies of Ariel and Kfir on Thursday.

However, it said the body that Hamas had claimed was their mother was not her and the group had therefore violated the ceasefire agreement.

“During the identification process, it was found that the additional body received was not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other abductee. It is an anonymous body without identification,” it said in a statement.

“This is a very serious violation by the Hamas terrorist organisation, which is required by the agreement to return four dead abductees. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our abductees.”

Hamas said there was the “possibility of an error or overlap in the bodies” due to Israeli bombing. Hamas has said they were all killed in Israeli airstrikes near the start of the war. The group has never provided evidence to back this up. Israel says the Bibas family were murdered by Hamas in captivity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said Israel would make Hamas pay for failing to release Shiri’s body, calling it a “cruel and malicious violation”.

“We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages – both living and dead – and ensure Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement,” he said in a video statement.

The body of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted, was also handed over on Thursday.

Hamas handed over the remains as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement which was reached with Israel last month.

The bodies were transferred in four black coffins in a carefully orchestrated public display as a crowd of Palestinians and dozens of armed Hamas militants watched.

Israelis lined the road in the rain near the Gaza border to pay their respects as the convoy carrying the coffins drove by.

In Tel Aviv, people gathered, some weeping, in a public square opposite Israel’s defence headquarters that has come to be known as Hostages Square.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to eliminate Hamas and said the four coffins meant “more than ever” that Israel had to ensure there was no repeat of the 7 October attack.

Mr Netanyahu said: “Our loved ones’ blood is shouting at us from the soil and is obliging us to settle the score with the despicable murderers, and we will.”

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said: “Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts – the hearts of an entire nation – lie in tatters.”

United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, called the parading of the four bodies “cruel” and “inhumane” in a statement on Thursday.

He said: “Under international law, any handover of the remains of deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families.”

The Bibas family has become a powerful symbol of the 251 Israelis kidnapped on 7 October – not least because Kfir was the youngest taken.

The children’s father, Yarden Bibas, was released on 1 February as part of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

Sombre moment for Israelis – as Hamas uses opportunity for propaganda

Diana Magnay

International correspondent

@DiMagnaySky

The return of the bodies of four Israeli hostages is a “sombre moment” for everybody in Israel and Jews across the world, our international correspondent Diana Magnay says.

She says the two young boys, Ariel and Kfir, “really became a symbol of the tremendous suffering 7 October caused”.

“Now, to have them returned back in this way is tragic.”

Referring to the scenes of coffins being transferred to the Red Cross, Magnay says Hamas has chosen to use this “as a propaganda opportunity”.

“They have missiles on the stage where the four coffins were, saying they were killed by US bombs,” she explains.

She says Hamas’s main message is “this was caused by you, you should take responsibility for it”.

She adds that 7 October was caused by Hamas, and has brought “untold suffering to both Israel and Palestinians”.

Meanwhile, six living hostages, the final due to be freed under the first phase of the Gaza truce deal, will be released on Saturday, according to Hamas.

Israelis who survived being held prisoner in Gaza have been released in small groups since the first six-week phase began last month.

The deal has provided a vital pause in the fighting that’s devastated Gaza and left tens of thousands dead.

At least 1,200 people were killed in the attack that started the war.

Since then, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.