I was contacted by Vlad, who is a combat paramedic with a special operations assault regiment fighting in the Eastern frontline. I had helped him before with some tactical medical stuff. He sounded concerned as their supply of tourniquets was running really low, while demand seemed to go up daily as the fighting was intensifying. They were using 10 to 15 tourniquets in their unit daily. The situation was expected to get worse as the Ukrainian counter-offensive was gaining momentum. 

Vlad is a young man in his late twenties, who like many of his friends volunteered to join a territorial defence unit on the first week of the war. In fact, he was a final-year medical student preparing for his final exams at the university in his hometown of Vinnitsa in the central Ukraine when Russians rolled into Ukraine. As he puts it, “I texted my resignation to the Deanery. I just did not want to helplessly receive death notices on my phone while sitting at the lectures, or doing hospital ward rounds. I basically gave up on my medical diploma less than a year prior to getting it”. He has gone on to train as a combat medic, achieved all the required qualifications, and has been selected to join an elite special forces regiment. He is now in charge of transporting the wounded from the battlefield to their “stabilization facility”, basically a tent with a portable operating theatre inside, located a couple of miles from the “ground zero”. Being a senior medic, Vlad also teaches tactical medicine according to the NATO standards to the new recruits.

High-fidelity simulation out in the field.

The regiment is an elite unit attached to the Military Intelligence (GUR). They have been deployed to the hottest spots where the fighting has been the fiercest. As a result, they have, and are suffering the heaviest casualties. Their training is very tough, and the selection process is very strict. You could have a glimpse of their training routines from their official promo video. In it, the soldiers are going through what is known as a “psycho path”, an ultimate obstacle course that they have to complete before their deployment.

As an aside, the Regiment’s symbol is an owl’s skeleton, which is embroidered on their banners, and sleeve patches. There is a message to the Russian Intelligence, and their special forces, whose symbol is a bat. Bats are a food for owls! Also, on the motto of the Russian intelligence is “Above us only stars!”, while the Ukrainian one says “The Wise will rule the stars”. On the pictures below you could see all their insignia, and also the chief of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence in his office with a picture of an owl about to catch a bat behind him.

The Chief of the Ukrainian Military Intelligence with a picture of an owl preying on a bat in his office.

The Ukrainian Military Intelligence – an owl piercing Russia with a sword and their motto “Humans dominate the stars” in Latin

The Russian Military Intelligence – a bat with their motto “Above us only stars” written on it in Russian.

I have spoken to the Regiment’s Chief Medical officer, and we have identified their immediate needs in regards to tactical medical disposables. The first priority were tourniquets, as the overwhelming proportion of the injuries inflicted are blast ones to the extremities, which are unprotected by the body armour. Mykola, the Chief Medical Officer was trying hard to introduce the NATO standards, according to which soldiers are only permitted to go into “the hot zone” with a tourniquet on each extremity. We needed to act relatively fast in order to be able to get our shipment in time for the counter-offensive. 

I started fundraising immediately, and with the help of my Consultant colleagues at the Southampton Hospital managed to raise just under £5000. My colleague and friend Dr. Jules Kause raised another £1800, mainly through her musician contacts. She has been and is a great supporter of our Ukraine project, both raising money and sourcing the much-needed medical supplies, that we have been sending to Natali, my main medical contact in Kyiv who then distributes it among the medics in the Eastern frontline.

I received another £900 worth of tourniquets and Celox haemostatic gauze from a British Veterans charity run by a Ukrainian national living in the UK. 

I was also introduced to the good people at Fenton Pharmaceuticals, a company used by our local Air Ambulance, and they offered me a generous discount on their tacmed products. I managed to source a good amount of tourniquets, and other items requested by the Regiment’s Chief Medical Officer, and I then delivered them to Krakow, and handed them over to my trusted volunteers.

One of the invoices from Fenton Pharmaceuticals.

One of the invoices from Fenton Pharmaceuticals.

One of the invoices from Fenton Pharmaceuticals.

Crossing of the Polish-Ukrainian border turned out the major obstacle for them, as the Ukrainian Customs has been clamping down on smaller volunteer groups recently due to a few well-publicised cases of fraud, but once all the paperwork was collected, and the boxes were in Lviv, it was a pretty plain sailing from there. It took several weeks for the boxes to reach the frontline, but they did get there just in time for the counter-offensive. Lives and limbs will be saved due to many people’s generosity and good will!

Boxes finally arrived in Lviv, and are ready to be posted to Kyiv.

I have obviously gotten quite close to the guys from the Regiment, and asked them about their next priorities. Without doubt, tourniquets will remain high on their list in the coming weeks and months. There are military logistical chains, as well as a few bigger charities ensuring their demand for tac med stuff is met, at least to some degree. In the video below, they are standing in front of our boxes, and saying thanks in Ukrainian and English to all of those who had made the delivery of the vital disposables possible.

There is something else, which would make a huge difference in the life of the medical service guys and girls. It is a new means of transportation of wounded soldiers from the “ground zero” to their “stabilization” medical facility. They currently use a Mercedes “Sprint” van, fully equipped with all the necessary transfer gear, and monitoring. It has one major drawback, and that is a complete lack of off road capabilities. As a team, they have agreed that having a more basic 4×4, which would fit 4-5 wounded soldiers is a much better option for them. This “scoop and run” approach in a basic, but very capable means of transport would definitely save more lives. “Apply tourniquets and drive fast” to the place where damage-control surgery could be performed is definitely the way forward in their circumstances.

The combat medics in front of their “Ambulance”.

I am very keen to contribute to this project, and this is going to be my next fundraising effort. They have identified a suitable vehicle, which is going to be based on a petrol Toyota Hilux platform. Petrol is a requirement because the Regiment’s medical team is supported by a pharmaceutical company, who supplies them with unlimited petrol.

The doctors from the stabilization medical facility with our boxes and a Union Jack that they are showing in gratitude.

In the meantime, I will continue sending out small batches of emergency medical supplies, and medicines through various logistical channels, In fact, a few boxes of airway stuff and intravenous access devices along with some medicines requested by Natali, and sourced by Jules are leaving for Kyiv in a few days.

I have also been in contact with my anaesthetic colleague Vitaliy, who is in charge of an evacuation train taking patients from the Eastern frontline to the tertiary centres in the West for specialist treatment and rehabilitation. This is a picture of doctors working in the train with the latest batch of kit.

A batch of valuable orthopaedic disposables, collected by the Southampton operating theatre staff is waiting to find its way into Dnipro so that Oleksii Goregliad (see his story in the Stories section) could continue saving limbs of the wounded soldiers.

Thanks for your continuing support!

Slava Ukraini!