Doctors at War: Witnesses to Genocide

Donbass’s civilian hospitals have been the targets of armed attacks and shelling since the early days of the conflict.

Above: Ward of the city hospital in Gorlovka, Donetsk People’s Republic (DRP). The windows are covered by pillows, the city is being shelled by the Ukrainian army.

Most of the injured patients have been civilians.

Above: Doctors at Gorlovka’s city hospital operate on a local resident wounded during shelling.

Many of the victims have been children.

Above: Gorlovka’s city hospital. Doctor stands at the bedside of a 7-year-old boy placed in intensive care after being wounded by Ukrainian shelling.

After shelling attacks, doctors and nurses would take to the streets to provide emergency medical assistance.

Above: A doctor assists a victim of an artillery strike in Lugansk.

Unfortunately, not all of the wounded civilians could be delivered to the operating table in time.

Above: Ambulance workers load a resident of Lugansk who was wounded during shelling onto a stretcher.

Medical workers provided medical aid to the Donbass militias which formed to repel Ukrainian forces’ advance. Some became militia members themselves.

Above: A Donbass militiaman aids a wounded man following a tank attack on the village of Semyonovka, DPR.

Civilian doctors and medics became military ones on the spot with practical, real-world experience. They worked in conflict zones, in urban areas turned to rubble, in places which had been mined.

Above: A medical worker helps a wounded militia fighter during a battle on the outskirts of Slavyansk, DPR. The man was brought to hospital by local residents.

The injured needed blood. Local residents chipped in to donate as best they could.

Above: Donetsk regional blood transfusion station. Medics collect blood for victims of shelling.

The frontline often came up right up to hospitals, but staff would continue their work to the end.

Above: Village of Semyonovka in DPR. A doctor at a hospital facing artillery fire from the Ukrainian Army looks through a window toward Ukrainian positions.

During periods of particularly heavy artillery attacks, doctors, nurses and orderlies would carry patients into hospitals’ basements. From there, the necessary medical procedures would continue to be performed.

Above: Medical workers in the hospital in the village of Semyonovka, DPR take shelter in the building’s basement during an artillery strike.

Medical workers from the hospital in Semyonovka hide from shelling in the basement.

Doctors from the psychiatric hospital in Gorlovka, DPR place patients in areas away from windows during shelling by the Ukrainian Army.

Nurse from the Gorlovka City Hospital cleans up pieces of broken glass after a Ukrainian artillery strike.

Doctor from the Donetsk Military Hospital #1 shows a photo of shrapnel removed from the body of a wounded soldier.

Doctor sits near a child undergoing treatment at the ‘Family and Health’ medical association clinic in Gorlovka, DPR.

Not all doctors and nurses survived the war. At least one doctor was killed in shelling. Others died before their time from the strain. Others still were wounded or mutilated. Others left.

All of them are heroes – human beings who fulfilled the ancient motto of the medical profession ‘Aliis inserviendo ipse consumor.’ – ‘In service to others, I myself am consumed.’

Above: Doctor Vitaliy Kuchaev inspects the consequences of the shelling of the hospital in the village of Staromikhailovka, DPR.