‘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
Donald Trump has announced his “highly anticipated” meeting with Vladimir Putin will take place next Friday in the US state of Alaska.
The two presidents are expected to discuss the war in Ukraine – with the talks potentially leading to a breakthrough in Mr Trump’s effort to end the conflict.
But there’s no guarantee it will stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.
Earlier, the US president told reporters “we’re getting very close to a deal” that would end the war.
Mr Trump added there will be “some swapping of territories to the betterment of both sides”.
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‘I’m not against meeting Zelenskyy’
The meeting between the two leaders will be the first US-Russia summit since 2021, when former US President Joe Biden met Mr Putin in Switzerland.
Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social: “The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska. Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The meeting was also confirmed by Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, who said the leaders will “focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis”.
He added that the two presidents could meet in Russia in future and that an invitation has already been extended to Mr Trump.
Yesterday, Mr Trump had told reporters at the White House that he couldn’t announce where or when the meeting would take place but he would do so soon.
He also suggested that his meeting with the Russian leader could come before any discussion involving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We’re going to have a meeting with Russia, start off with Russia. And we’ll announce a location. I think the location will be a very popular one,” Mr Trump said.
The US president added: “President Putin, I believe, wants to see peace, and Zelenskyy wants to see peace … in all fairness to President Zelenskyy, he’s getting everything he needs to, assuming we get something done.”
Read more:
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Donald Trump, right, and Vladimir Putin at a summit in Vietnam in 2017. Pic: Reuters
Territory to form part of talks
Speaking about the role that territory will play in the peace talks, Mr Trump said: “You’re looking at a territory that’s been fought over for three-and-a-half years. A lot of Russians have died. A lot of Ukrainians have died.
“So we’re looking at that, but we’re actually looking to get some back, and some swapping.
“It’s complicated, actually. Nothing is easy. It’s very complicated. But we’re going to get some back.
“We’re going to get some switched. There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”
Analysts, including some close to the Kremlin, have suggested that Russia could offer to give up territory it controls outside of the four regions it claims to have annexed.
Pressed on if this was the last chance to make a major peace deal, Mr Trump said: “I don’t like using the term last chance … when those guns start going off, it’s awfully tough to get them to stop.”
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Trump says he will meet Putin
Western officials ‘to meet in UK’
Meanwhile, senior officials from the US, Ukraine and several European countries are due to meet in the UK this weekend to try and reach common positions ahead of the Trump-Putin meeting, according to Axios.
Ukraine and several NATO allies are reported to be privately concerned that Mr Trump might agree to Mr Putin’s proposals for ending the war without taking their positions into consideration.
Since his return to the White House in January, Mr Trump has moved to mend relations with Russia and sought to end the war – with public comments veering between admiration and sharp criticism of Mr Putin.
In a sign of his growing frustration with Russia’s refusal to halt its military offensive, Mr Trump had threatened to impose new sanctions and tariffs against Moscow – and countries that buy its exports – unless the Kremlin agreed to end the conflict.
A deadline was set for yesterday, but it is unclear whether these sanctions are taking effect, or if they will be delayed or cancelled in light of the talks.
Ukrainian servicemen of the 148th artillery brigade load ammunition into a M777 howitzer before firing in Zaporizhzhia.
Pic: AP
War grinds on ahead of talks
The meeting has been arranged as Russia’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armour while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainian forces are locked in intense battles along the 620-mile frontline that snakes from northeast to southeast Ukraine.
The Pokrovsk area of the eastern Donetsk region is taking the brunt of punishment as Russia seeks to break out into the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region.
Five days before he was killed by a falling aid package, father-of-two Uday al Qaraan called on world leaders to open Gaza’s borders to food – and criticised the use of airdrops.
“This isn’t aid delivery,” said the 32-year-old medic as a crowd of children rummaged through the remains of an airdrop behind him. “This is humiliation.”
Using footage from social media, satellite imagery, eyewitness testimony and flight tracking data, Sky News has examined the dangers posed by airdrops – and just how little difference they are making to Gaza’s hunger crisis.
A tangled parachute and a crowd in chaos
Based on six videos of the airdrop that killed Uday, we were able to locate the incident to a tent camp on the coast of central Gaza.
We determined that the drop occurred at approximately 11.50am on 4 August, based on metadata from these videos shared by three eyewitnesses.
Flight tracking data shows that only one aid plane, a UAE Armed Forces C-130 Hercules, was in the area at that time.
Footage from the ground shows 12 pallets falling from the plane. The four lowest parachutes soon become tangled, and begin to fall in pairs.
As a crowd surges towards the landing zone, a gunshot rings out. Nine more follow over a 90-second period.
Sakhr al Qaraan, an eyewitness and Uday’s neighbour, says that Uday was among those running after the first pallet to land.
“He didn’t see the other pallet it was tangled up with, and it fell on him moments later,” says Sakhr.
“People ran to collect the aid in cold blood, devoid of humanity, and he suffocated under that damned blanket – under the feet of people who had lost all humanity.”
The scene descended into chaos as Palestinians, some armed, tussled over the limited food available.
By the time Uday was pulled from the crowd and rushed to hospital, it was too late.
The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
Medic and father-of-two Uday al Qaraan, 32, was killed on 4 August by an aid package dropped from a UAE Armed Forces plane.
Parachutes failed in half of airdrops analysed
This was not the first time that airdrops at this location had posed a threat to those on the ground.
The day before Uday was killed, the same plane had dropped aid over the site.
The footage below, shared by the UAE Armed Forces, shows the view from inside the plane. Just before the footage ends, it shows that one of the parachutes was broken.
Hisham al Armi recorded the scene from the ground. His video shows the broken parachute, as well as another that had failed completely.
Military planes dropped aid at the site on eight consecutive days between 30 July and 6 August. Sky News verified footage showing parachute failures during four of those eight airdrops.
Flight tracking data shows that almost all of the 67 aid flights over that period followed a similar route along the coast, which is densely packed with tent camps.
An Israel Defence Forces (IDF) official told Sky News that the airdrops are routed along the coast, because this is where much of Gaza’s population is now concentrated.
An IDF spokesperson added the Israeli military “takes all possible measures to mitigate the harm to uninvolved civilians”.
Hisham al Armi told Sky News he is grateful to the countries that donated the aid, but “the negatives outweigh the positives”.
“Fighting occurs when aid is dropped, and some people are killed … due to the crush and parachutes.”
Other dangers are also posed by the airdrops.
The footage below, taken on 29 July, shows Palestinians venturing into the sea in order to chase aid that had drifted over the water. The IDF has banned Palestinians from entering the sea.
One woman, a relative of Uday who witnessed his death, described the airdrops as the “airborne humiliation of the people”.
“There is not enough aid for them,” she said. “It creates problems among the people, and some are killed just to obtain a little aid. And most people don’t receive any aid, they remain hungry for days.”
Between 27 July and 1 August, Gaza received an estimated 1,505 tonnes of food aid per day via land routes – 533 tonnes short of what the UN’s food security agency says is needed to meet basic needs.
Based on flight tracking data, we estimated that airdrops added just 38 tonnes daily, 7% of the shortfall.
“The quantities involved are minuscule in terms of the scale of the need,” says Sam Rose, Gaza director of UNRWA, the UN agency previously responsible for distributing food in the territory.
UNRWA claims it has enough food stationed outside of Gaza to feed the population for three months, but that Israel has not allowed the agency to bring in any food since 2 March.
“We should be dealing with that rather than introducing something else which is costly, dangerous, undignified and somehow legitimises … the access regime by suggesting that we found a way round it through airdrops,” Rose says.
COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating aid deliveries, referred Sky News to a statement in which it said there is “no limit on the amount of aid” allowed into Gaza.
An IDF spokesperson also denied restricting aid, and said the Israeli military “will continue to work in order to improve the humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip, along with the international community”.
In his interview five days before he was killed, Uday al Qaraan appealed to world leaders to open Gaza’s borders.
“What would happen if they just let the aid in?” he asked. “If you can fly planes and drop aid from the sky then you can break the siege, you can open a land crossing.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
World
Trump vowed to end Ukraine war in first 24 hours of his presidency – nearly 200 days in, could he be close?
Seven hours is a long time in US politics.
At 10am, Donald Trump accused Russia of posing a threat to America’s national security.
By 5pm, Mr Trump said there was a “good prospect” of him meeting Vladimir Putin “soon”.
There had, he claimed, been “great progress” in talks between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president.
It’s difficult to gauge the chances of a meeting between the two leaders without knowing what “great progress” means.
Is Russia “inclined” towards agreeing a ceasefire, as Ukraine’s president now claims?
Is Mr Putin prepared to meet with his Ukrainian foe, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, too?
The very fact that we’re asking those questions suggests something shifted on a day when there was no expectation of a breakthrough.
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