The “Ulf” medical service of the Da Vinci Wolves unit is currently operating in the Pokrovske sector. The medics have been especially busy here, as this is one of the most intense areas of the frontline. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are vigorously defending the region, while Russian forces are relentlessly applying all their resources in an attempt to break through to the city of Pokrovsk.
Slidstvo.Info spent several days with the military doctors of the Da Vinci Wolves unit to show the conditions in which they work and how they pull fighters back from the brink. The video has English subtitles.
‘JUST PLEASE DON’T SHAVE MY HAIR’
Olha: A finger is a little torn… Ouch.
Medic: Olya, you’ve been to our stabilisation centre. You know how we treat people. Everything will be fine…
Medic: See how we are meeting.
Olha: It was just a fountain.
Medic: From your head?
Olha: Yes. The blood poured all over me, and only then did I realise… The main thing is that I’ll survive. But my arm hurts, it hurts so much.
Olha: Just please, don’t shave my hair.
Medic: I’m not touching your hair at all.
Olha: Please don’t shave it. I’ll look like a homeless person.
Medic: No, you won’t. Can you hear me?
Olha: Yes.
Medic: No one will touch your hair.
Olha: Thank God!
The wounded medic Olha, only 21 years old, was brought to the “Ulf” medical service of the Da Vinci Wolves.
Olha
Medic: Olya, you’re our first girl, by the way.
Olha: I know…
Medic: Everything’s fine, Olya, you’re here with us. And we’re with you. Look, you’re strong. You’re in the army.
Olha: It hurts.
Medic: I understand.
Olha: I’ll cry if it’s not forbidden to cry here.
Everyone: (laughing)
Medic: You’re beautiful! You’re a man!
Medic: No, you’re a girl. I run the emergency room, there are only two genders here.
Medic: Well done, well done, calm down.
Medic: It didn’t hurt your face, you didn’t hurt anything. You’re just as beautiful as you were.
Olha is a volunteer. She joined the army a week after graduating from Novhorod-Siverskyi Professional Medical College.
Olha
“Our crew is working hard, and we are improving. We’ve never lost anyone on the road. But today, no one expected what happened. We were travelling with a radar when it was blown away, leaving a hole in the roof. Everything came flying at me,” Olha explains after receiving medical treatment.
The young medic was injured just as they were leaving their station. Fortunately, the rest of the crew remained unharmed as the hit struck the back of their vehicle.
“At the turn, I heard an explosion and suddenly felt blood pouring from my forehead. I covered it with my hand and said, ‘I’m 300’ (wounded). ‘Gorynych’ (a fellow soldier) immediately started helping me, shouting, ‘Vasya, hurry up!’ At that moment, I thought I might die… I was just driving and thinking, how the hell am I going to die at 21?” she recalls.
Alina Mykhailova, head of the Ulf medical service of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion, says that Olha is the first woman they have treated at their station during the war: “I know Olya. She’s a paramedic from one of the battalions attached to us, and we usually meet at my station, where she brings me the wounded. Olya is just 21 years old. Today, at the age of 21, she came to us as a wounded soldier.”
Alina Mykhailova
Alina talks about the injustice she feels, expressing her frustration and sadness that such a young girl was injured, while many men avoid going to war.
“When I hear that a 21-year-old child is lying on my emergency bed, and just the day before yesterday, when I went to change the evacuation vehicles in Dnipro, bitch, we couldn’t even stop for coffee because the place was packed with ‘foreheads’ (men – ed.). Fucking Dnipro office workers who don’t want to go to war! And she’s lying there with her head smashed in, saying: ‘Don’t cut my hair,’ and passing on love messages to her boyfriend. This is surreal — two parallel worlds that never intersect!” says Alina Mykhailova.
‘IT’S LIKE WE’RE A LOST GAME OF CARDS’
At the Ulf medical service, the team is made up of people from vastly different professions. The youngest among them is just 22 years old.
Andriy, a nurse, explains that before the war he was a prosthetist, but he gave it all up to support the defenders.
Andriy
“I am a rehabilitation therapist, but I used to work as a prosthetist — making prosthetic arms and legs. I needed a job, but I couldn’t stay in Lviv. You could say I had just been promoted and was earning more, but I couldn’t ignore the need to replace those who were fighting. So, as soon as I was promoted, I went to the recruitment centre… I wanted to join a mortar unit, but also the Ulf. In the end, I ended up in the infantry. I served there before transferring to Ulf, and I’m glad I did.”
Surgeon Mykola Iliychuk started as a combat medic. He has been through the war, progressing from an infantryman to a doctor, all while completing his fifth year of medical school during the war.
Surgeon Mykola Iliychuk
“I’d like to work in civilian medicine once the war is over. But for now, this is my calling. I enjoy working with wounds and life-threatening situations. It’s rewarding because you immediately see the results of your work.”
The medic known by the call sign ‘Pierce’ is a young combat medic who has been with the battalion for a month. He is a teacher by profession, and his last job was working at a piercing salon.
‘Pierce’
The young man explains that his lack of formal medical education doesn’t prevent him from being useful at the station: “You don’t need a medical degree. The most important thing is the motivation to become a combat medic. It all depends on the unit — if they are willing to help you and you have the drive, you’ll succeed.”
Oleksiy, a television director, also agrees that medical education isn’t a requirement to make a difference: “I don’t have a medical degree; I’m a television director. There simply aren’t enough medics, especially combat medics at stabilisation stations. Even fewer with formal education, but if you take the right courses, you can still do a lot.”
Oleksiy
The head of the Ulf medical service speaks emotionally about civilians in big cities who are disconnected from the war, living their lives without joining the fight.
“I’m crying because I feel sorry for her (Olya), I feel sorry for all of us. It’s like we’re a fucking lost game of cards. The world is living its life in nightclubs, while we’re here cobbling this stabilisation station together out of nothing, providing whatever help we can. And every day, we just hope no one brings us anyone ‘heavy’ to treat. It’s surreal,” she says.
Alina admits that she does not have the motivation to fight for civilians who live outside the war: “Olya will be fine; she’ll go to the evacuation centre. But the motivation to fight… I never said I was fighting for those people. I’m not fighting for anyone sitting there drinking fucking coffee while we’re here, fighting for a brighter future for them. No. I’m fighting for my country, my mum, my dog, and the people who are here with me — that’s it.”
Da Vinci’s Wolves have been in the Donetsk region for three months without a break.
“I have no words. I’m standing there, Olya is holding my hand, crying. And I think I’m going to cry too. The chief medical officer is crying over the wounded… If I didn’t have that image of Dnipro from just three days ago. We’ve been here for three months now, and the situation in the Donetsk region is a mess! And I think, well, Dnipro is preparing. Fuck! And it’s Dnipro. It’s not Kyiv, it’s not Lviv. And if we’re talking about Kyiv or Lviv, you might as well lie down and dig your own grave,” the doctor says.
Surgeon Mykola Iliychuk reflects on the lives he has saved, which give him the strength to keep working.
“We barely sleep at night and work constantly. Our daily rhythm is completely off. Every day we handle serious cases, and every day we treat them. I’d rather have sleepless nights and keep working, as long as they (the wounded) make it to us. Then we can add one more to the statistics of patients saved. That’s what gives me strength. That’s what gives me motivation,” says the doctor.
