Violent night, holy night
On Christmas Eve we went to a frontline medical stabilization point taking in soldiers from the Donetsk direction. Neither us nor the medics felt like we had a right to take a break for the holidays.
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We had barely started eating Kutya – the sweet Ukrainian Christmas dish you’re obliged to eat first, and with a spoon – when the first call came in for an emergency evacuation.
At the forward headquarters of MOAS, an NGO dedicated to spiriting critical patients away from the frontlines, Christmas Eve dinner was marked with a couple hearty toasts and camaraderie.
But there’s a subtext to all of it: duty to mission means that every person at the table is spending Christmas here rather than with their loved ones or families.
It’s the third Christmas of the full-scale war, and it feels strange to acknowledge that. When I talk to my friends in Ukraine, I find that ‘fatigue’ is hardly a sufficient term to describe their condition.
They're exhausted to their bones; no, their bone marrow – their red blood cells, even!
But as has become my mantra here in Ukraine, it is a sin to complain.
So we all take a deep breath and grind on.
“I have some responsibility to my country,” said Alina, a paramedic that is the head of this particular MOAS unit. “I want to continue to live in it and for it to remain independent, prosperous, and flourishing... And since I'm a doctor, and in the medical field I can help save guys, I decided that the best decision at that time was to show up where I am now.”
But duty has its costs.
One of the doctors, Rostislav, shows us photos of his Christmas tree back home hundreds of kilometers away; he tells us that his daughter doesn’t have her father home for Christmas for yet another year.
Meanwhile, the world seems less and less interested in hearing about Ukraine. Mission-oriented organizations have struggled as Ukraine has become the ‘old war’ following the October 7 attacks in Israel last year.
MOAS, like The Counteroffensive, has witnessed this firsthand in its financials.
Despite saving up to 700 lives per week on the medical frontline, MOAS is on the brink of shuttering in January due to a lack of funding for the new year.
With $1 million of operating expenses per month, it needs a government like the U.K. to step in to bridge the gap.
“If MOAS has to cease operations due to lack of funding, people will die who shouldn’t die,” said Justin Marozzi, a senior advisor of the group.
So on Christmas Eve, Nastia and I embedded with their ambulances to observe how their teams save lives on a nightly basis, pulling soldiers back from their frontline positions to hospitals with greater capabilities hours away.
We cannot reveal their location for security purposes, but suffice it to say that we had to cross four security checkpoints to arrive at their base.
When the first call of the night comes in from the front lines, we’re told at first that there are two patients in surgery: one with a head injury and another with a stomach injury. In the fog of war, this is at best misleading information – their wounds are ultimately far more complex and serious than these few words would convey.
We pile into an ambulance and join a convoy as it rushes to a stabilization point, across pockmarked roads filled with potholes. You can feel the rumbling in your lungs as we traverse the uninviting trails.
We arrive in a small village where the local hospital, originally never envisioned as a combat medicine outpost, is home to a cast of rotating doctors, nurses and administrators trying to save lives on a nightly basis. It is sparse, with a make-do attitude emanating from the staff and supplies. On the floor, in a purple bucket, medical professionals warm IV fluids with hot water.
There are two patients at the stabilization point now in the late evening; 27 have passed through on Christmas Eve so far.
“There is no peace on Christmas!” one of the doctors exclaimed.
I notice dark, dark circles under the eyes of two doctors walking back and forth, more vibrant than I’ve ever noticed in anyone. It’s a reflection of the enormous weight on their shoulders as they work this critical medical outpost.
But there’s also a certain equanimity in their step, a sort of confidence they have as experienced medical providers in emergency situations of life and death. I always remember my combat medicine instructor’s instruction: that the first intervention any medic can implement when coming across an emergency is calmness.
After finishing surgery, our ambulance gets its assignment: a heavily-sedated and wounded soldier, with an intubation tube sticking out of his mouth and eyes covered by bandages. He’ll need far more serious care than this stabilization point can provide, and it is MOAS’ job to take him to a hospital with more capabilities – alive.
Even as we are leaving with one patient, another three injured arrive. Two had arrived while we were waiting. It’s a constant mix of new patients as the night goes on.
The soldier our ambulance ends up transporting is a person severely injured as a result of artillery shelling: he suffered multiple injuries to the head, face, chest and stomach. His left hand was amputated by the blast. He has shrapnel all over, including the head and left eye.
Warning: video shows emergency medical care. Viewer discretion is advised.
The ambulance is suddenly a flurry of activity as the doctors prepare him for transport.
He’s receiving blood; and the doctors are providing Noradrenaline to keep his blood pressure from plummeting. The patient is extremely unstable and as the medics load the patient into the ambulance they turn the heaters on to 27 degrees Celsius / 80 degrees Fahrenheit to help warm him up on the bumpy ride to better medical care.
Every day, medics all across the frontlines ferry dozens of severely injured soldiers in hopes of saving as many lives as they can.
Doctors and medics doing evacuation often don’t know what happens to their patients after they are passed on to other medical professionals.
Instead, they are brought patient after patient, a relentless current of wounded, carrying them off to far-off, unknown shores.
While we can’t report the soldier’s name, as of Christmas Day, we’re told he is still alive. It’s a rare piece of good news for those whose jobs are on the line; and who are confronted with trauma after trauma.
There is no peace here on Christmas.
Maybe next year.
RACCOON OF WAR:
While en route to our embed, we saw these soldiers with a pet raccoon. Nastia immediately embraced it when she got the chance.
Stay safe out there.
Best,
Tim
Thank you for sharing and doing what you do Tim. It’s tragic that we have basically pushed this war to the background as more profitable wars can get people’s attention. It makes me wonder about other conflicts that have gone on for decades and we just don’t bother helping or understanding what it does to the forgotten people.
Thank you Tim and Anastasiia for your reporting. It is a real shame that people in West are so decadent and whiny while people in Ukraine are fighting for their survival.