‘Like a normal man’: How bionic limbs are helping Ukrainian troops injured in war
A tall man emerged from an array of gym equipment, walking towards me, slightly swaying as his prosthetic leg flexed and stepped in time with his natural one.
His right arm was missing, and his left was a smooth black prosthesis arm with his hands and fingers clenched in a fist.
He was introduced to me as Anton. I wasn’t sure how to greet him other than to say hello.
He saw my hesitation, and smiling he raised his left arm to shake my hand, his fingers opening and closing around my hand as we observed a customary gesture of greeting – a handshake.
His handshake was gentle and completely natural. I was simply amazed. I’ve never seen or experienced anything like it.
“Wow, it works,” I said.
“Yes, it does,” he replied with a smirk, and then carried on walking down the corridor.
This was to be a day of incredible experiences.
We are in the Tytanova Rehabilitation Centre in Kyiv. Much of it is a large gymnasium kitted out with state-of-the-art equipment designed for amputees to keep fit and rehabilitate.
The amputees are all soldiers injured in the war with Russia. These men may never fight again, but they’re in a renewed battle to rebuild their lives, and here they’re being helped with extraordinary technology.
It’s called osseointegration – a titanium implant that is connected to the bone of the patient and the prosthetic arm or leg clicks on to that.
But this is the remarkable bit. The nervous system in their limb is gone so they learn to send messages to their muscles and their new arm or leg comes alive, following instructions from their brain.
The technology was first used in Ukraine a year ago and can be used on all limbs.
We meet Oleksandr Solomiany, 48, who lost his right arm last December in the battle of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Before the war, he was a tech entrepreneur specialising in the environment.
Oleksandr is still learning how to use his new arm. He walked us through a parking lot and into another building for another training session.
This isn’t a physical training session though, it’s a mental one. He will be practising how to teach his brain to command his muscles to move his bionic arm.
It’s his third session and he says it will take at least two or three more months before he gains the skills to fully operate it.
Oleksandr sits down and takes off his t-shirt, he then removes his bionic arm so that sensory wires can be attached to his amputated arm and to the chest and back muscles surrounding it.
The training session today will be with a bionic prosthetic arm that is not physically attached to him, only wired into him.
“What are you trying to do?” I ask him while he looks at a screen, concentrating hard.
“I imagine that I close my arm and rotate,” he tells me while moving the prosthetic using his brain and chest muscles.
Oleksandr’s trainer Yaroslav Patsukevych is a biomedical engineer who volunteers here.
48-year-old Oleksandr Solomiany who lost his right arm last December in the battle of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine
He explains to me: “You can fool the system to overwrite the muscles that you usually use with your hands, for example, to teach the chest muscles to do the same thing.
“When the patient contracts his muscle, this prosthesis calibrates with his brain and recreates this command with the prosthesis.”
I asked Yaroslav where this prosthesis comes from. He told me the hand is made in Britain, the arm is made in America, and the technology is Swedish.
And the man – I think to myself – is Ukrainian.
Yaroslav Patsukevych (left) is helping Oleksandr learn to use his new limb
For Oleksandr, even though this is mental training it is physically draining. I ask him if it’s a big experience for him, realising that he can actually have an arm that works.
“It’s the first stage of [a] long, long way in my life. It’s only my first prosthesis and technologies never stop. I will expect another technology, like chip in the brain, or something else,” he replies.
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Oleksandr leads a very active life and has no regrets about his battle injury – the focus is now on the future.
“This arm helps me with my routine, with my everyday tasks. I feel better with this arm, like normal people, like a normal man.”
The osseointegration surgery costs £20,000 for each lost limb, while a prosthetic arm or leg costs £80,000.
Viacheslav Zaporozhets (right) founded Tytanova Rehab and also supports evacuations from the frontline
The founder of Tytanova Rehab, Viacheslav Zaporozhets, is a millionaire businessman who wanted to help with the war effort. He fundraises money to help more and more men, and he says the beneficial effects on the amputees are immediate.
“I’ll tell you this, we’re bringing them back to life, even in a psychological sense,” Viacheslav Zaporozhets says.
“I always say, you’re not broken. We’ll teach you how to drive, even how to swim.
“From day one, we demonstrate this. When a new patient arrives, a veteran greets them and shows them what they’ve learned to do.”
A soldier who lost both legs exercises at Tytanova Rehab, Kyiv
He and his organisation don’t just rehabilitate the injured, they also evacuate them from the frontlines.
With their 22 ambulances, they’ve saved the lives of over 30,000 men since the start of the war, bringing them to safety.
The figure is, frankly, mind-blowing.
This war has claimed the lives of huge numbers of fighting men, but the figure itself is not published.
But we do know that the number of living casualties will be much, much higher, and these “bionic men” are just a fraction of them.
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has met Vladimir Putin for talks in Russia – as the US president called on Moscow to “get moving” with ending the war in Ukraine.
Mr Witkoff, who has been pressing the Kremlin to accept a truce, visited Mr Putin in St Petersburg after earlier meeting the Russian leader’s international co-operation envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
Mr Putin was shown on state TV greeting Mr Witkoff at the city’s presidential library at the start of the latest discussions about the search for a peace deal on Ukraine.
Before Friday’s meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down expectations of a breakthrough and told state media the visit would not be “momentous”.
Follow the latest updates on the war in Ukraine
However, Sky News Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett said he believes the meeting – Mr Witkoff’s third with Mr Putin this year – is significant as a sign of the Trump administration’s “increasing frustration at the lack of progress on peace talks”.
Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump issued his latest social media statement on trying to end the war, writing on Truth Social: “Russia has to get moving. Too many people ere [sic] DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war – A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!”
Dialogue between the US and Russia, aimed at agreeing a ceasefire ahead of a possible peace deal to end the war, has recently appeared to have stalled over disagreements around conditions for a full pause.
Mr Trump, pictured at a cabinet meeting at the White House earlier this week, has called for Russia to ‘get moving’. Pic: AP
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Secondary sanctions could be imposed on countries that buy Russian oil, Mr Trump has said, if he feels Moscow is dragging its feet on a deal.
Mr Putin has said he is ready in principle to agree a full ceasefire, but argues crucial conditions have yet to be agreed – and that what he calls the root causes of the war have yet to be addressed.
The Russian president wants to dismantle Ukraine as an independent, functioning state and has demanded Kyiv recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and other partly occupied areas, and pull its forces out, as well as a pledge for Ukraine to never join NATO and for the size of its army to be limited.
Zelenskyy renews support calls after attack on home city
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Children killed in strike on Zelenskyy’s home town
Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has renewed his appeals for more Patriot air defence systems after the deaths of 20 people, including nine children, who were killed when a Russian missile hit apartment buildings and a playground in his home city of Kryvyi Rih last week.
Speaking online at a meeting of the so-called Ramstein group of about 50 nations that provide military support to Ukraine, named after a previous meeting at America’s Ramstein air base in Germany in 2022, Mr Zelenskyy said recent Russian attacks showed Moscow was not ready to accept and implement any realistic and effective peace proposals.
Mr Zelenskyy also made his evening address to the nation, saying: “Ukraine is not just asking – we are ready to buy appropriate additional systems.”
The UK’s defence secretary, John Healy, has said this is “the critical year” for Ukraine – and has confirmed £450m in funding for a military support package.
A family of five Spanish tourists, including three children, have been killed in a helicopter crash in New York City.
A New York City Hall spokesman identified two of those killed as Agustin Escobar, a Siemens executive, and Merce Camprubi Montal – believed to be his wife, NBC News reported.
The pilot was also killed as the aircraft crashed into the Hudson River at around 3.17pm on Thursday.
New York Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said divers had recovered all those on board from the helicopter, which was upside down in the water.
“Four victims were pronounced dead on scene and two more were removed to local area hospitals, where sadly both succumbed to their injuries,” she said.
The helicopter was submerged upside down in the Hudson. Pic: Reuters
A crane lifted out the wreckage on Thursday evening. Pic: AP
The Spanish president Pedro Sanchez called the news “devastating”.
“An unimaginable tragedy. I share the grief of the victims’ loved ones at this heartbreaking time,” he wrote on X.
Rotor blade ‘flew off’
The aircraft was on a tourist flight of Manhattan, run by the New York Helicopters company.
Witnesses described seeing the main rotor blade flying off moments before it dropped out the sky.
Agustin Escobar and Merce Camprubi Montal.
Pic: Facebook
Lesly Camacho, a worker at a restaurant along the river in Hoboken, said she saw the helicopter spinning uncontrollably before it slammed into the water.
“There was a bunch of smoke coming out. It was spinning pretty fast, and it landed in the water really hard,” she said.
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Witness saw ‘parts flying off’ helicopter
Another witness said “the chopper blade flew off”.
“I don’t know what happened to the tail, but it just straight up dropped,” Avi Rakesh told Sky’s US partner, NBC News.
Video on social media showed parts of the Bell 206 helicopter tumbling through the air and landing in the river.
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New York mayor confirms six dead
The crash happened near Pier 40. Pic: AP
New York Mayor Eric Adams confirmed the six deaths and said authorities believed the tourists were from Spain.
He said the flight had taken off from a downtown heliport at around 3pm.
Pic: Cover Images/AP
The crash happened close to Pier 40 and the Holland tunnel, which links lower Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood with Jersey City to its west.
Tracking service Flight Radar 24 published what it said was the helicopter’s route, with the aircraft appearing to be in the sky for 15 minutes before the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have started an investigation.
Agustin Escobar.
Pic: Europa Press/AP
Thursday’s incident comes less than three month after 67 people died when an army helicopter and American Airlines jet collided over the Potomac River in Washington DC.
A former ballerina who spent more than a year in a Russian jail for donating £40 to a charity supporting Ukraine has returned home to the US after being freed in a prisoner exchange.
Ksenia Karelina landed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at around 11pm, local time, on Thursday.
A smiling Ms Karelina was greeted on the runway by her fiance, the professional boxer Chris van Heerden, and given flowers by Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East.
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Ksenia Karelina arrives at Joint Base Andrews. Pic: AP
Van Heerden said in a statement he was “overjoyed to hear that the love of my life, Ksenia Karelina, is on her way home from wrongful detention in Russia.
“She has endured a nightmare for 15 months and I cannot wait to hold her. Our dog, Boots, is also eagerly awaiting her return.”
He thanked Mr Trump and his envoys, as well as prominent public figures who had championed her case, including Dana White, a friend of Mr Trump and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Ms Karelina, 34, a US-Russian citizen also identified as Ksenia Khavana, was accused of treason when she was arrested in Yekaterinburg, in southwestern Russia, while visiting family in February last year.
Investigators searched her mobile phone and found she made a $51.80 (£40) donation to Razom, a charity that provides aid to Ukraine, on the first day of Russia’s invasion in 2022.
She admitted the charge at a closed trial in the city in August last year and was later jailed for 12 years, to be served in a penal colony.
At a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Mr Trump, who wants to normalise relations with Moscow, said the Kremlin “released the young ballerina and she is now out, and that was good. So we appreciate that”.
Ksenia Karelina is hugged by her boyfriend, Chris van Heerden. Pic: Reuters
He said the release followed conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian security services accused her of “proactively” collecting money for a Ukrainian organisation that was supplying gear to Kyiv’s forces.
The First Department, a Russian rights group, said the charges stemmed from a $51.80 donation to a US charity aiding Ukraine.
Washington, which had called her case “absolutely ludicrous”, released Arthur Petrov, who it was holding on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia, in the prisoner swap in Abu Dhabi.
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Karelina was among a growing number of Americans arrested in Russia in recent years as tensions between Moscow and Washington spiked over the war in Ukraine.
Her release is the latest in a series of high-profile prisoner exchanges Russia and the US carried out in the last three years – and the second since Mr Trump took office.
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said members of the Trump administration “continue to work around the clock to ensure Americans detained abroad are returned home to their families”.
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