Between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers have lost one or more limbs since the beginning of the conflict, Western press has reported.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recently announced that 40% of wounded Ukrainian soldiers have serious limb injuries that appear to be incurable.
However, it is difficult to know for sure how many Ukrainian soldiers have disabilities, because this information is top secret, according to a Norwegian media outlet.
As per the Russian Defense Ministry, over 71,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed during the three months of the Kiev regime's counteroffensive.
Given that Ukraine and Russia have been involved in high-scale counter-battery duels since the outset of the conflict, most of the wounds at the front have been caused by shrapnel and artillery fire, military personnel and war correspondents have said. Meanwhile, Ukrainians also sustained heavy losses while trying to storm Russia's sophisticated defense lines and minefields, which have been largely blamed by the Western press for the failure of the Kiev regime's offensive operations.
Ukrainian Amputees Evoke Scale of WWI
Western journalists assume that during 18 months of the special military operation in Ukraine, there have been at least 10 times the number of Ukrainian amputees than Americans with the same sort of injuries over 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
For their part, US medical experts say that injuries of this magnitude had not been seen by Western military surgeons since World War II. The First World War saw at least 67,000 Germans and 41,000 British amputees, according to some estimates.
Several clinics in Ukraine cite 20,000 amputee cases, but the actual figure may be higher as it takes time to register patients after undergoing the amputation procedure, per the media. Some patients have to wait for weeks or even months for the surgery as the Ukrainian healthcare system is overwhelmed.
During the unfolding conflict, the Ukrainian Armed Forces suffered a scale of losses for which the army's medical service was unprepared, Tetiana Ostashchenko, commander of the Medical Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, told a Ukrainian broadcaster on August 26.
"Neither the legislative framework nor the system itself was designed for such volumes of medical care," Ostashchenko stressed.
She said that new problems emerge every day and despite the nation's healthcare system trying to solve them, it is not working as quickly as required.
To complicate matters further, the battlefield first aid straps used by Ukrainian during combat to stem bleeding, are often fitted too high to the injured limb and left on for too long. As a result, the cells in the limb die and a whole arm or leg will need to be removed instead of just part of it. What's worse, sometimes these surgeries are done in horrific conditions, according to the British press.
Prosthetics is yet another problem faced by Ukrainian military amputees. One arm could cost $100,000 while a hook in place of a hand is an additional $8,000. A number of Western charities help some Ukrainian soldiers to get new artificial limbs but there are too many amputees returning from the battlefield.
Kiev Throws Ukrainians Into 'Meat Grinder'
Previously, former Prime Minister of Ukraine Nikolai Azarov stated that Kiev is deliberately hiding the figures of real losses in order to avoid payments to the families of fallen soldiers, attributing them to the number of missing people instead.
There have also been cases when wounded Ukrainian soldiers were left to die by their fellows on the battlefield. On September 12, captured Ukrainian serviceman Yevgeny Zinovik told Sputnik that he had been abandoned by the Ukrainian military and laid on the ground suffering from wounds for four days, until Russian reconnaissance officers found him. Zinovik confessed that he was glad to be captured after all this suffering. He said that he had undergone treatment in a Donetsk hospital.
The Ukrainian military leadership changed tactics during the counteroffensive: they try to keep weapons and military equipment safe, but do not care about human losses, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a press briefing in July.
The Russian president explained that in fact the Ukrainian Armed Forces "bring people to the frontline in armored vehicles, throw them out, and this equipment immediately disappears."
"They take care of their equipment, are afraid of losing it, and attack on foot, exposing people, of course, to the attacks of our artillery, tanks, and so on," Putin said.
Ukrainians Hide Abroad or Surrender
A glaring indicator of Kiev running out of military personnel is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's order to conduct a full review of all mobilization exemptions granted by Military Medical Commissions (MMCs) starting from February 24, 2022.
In addition to bringing young and elderly to the front, the Kiev regime has requested European states extradite Ukrainian draft-age adults. However, EU states are resisting those requests, citing European laws that prevent them from deporting refugees or altogether refusing to send Ukrainians back home. One should bear in mind that Ukrainians are a source of cheap labor in Europe.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military is continuing to surrender en masse: most recently, the Russian military captured eight Ukrainian militants in the Kherson region, as per Vladimir Saldo, acting head of the region.
"This is now happening more and more often - many of those fighting on the enemy’s side have gradually started to realize that their lives mean nothing to the military commanders and political leaders of the regime," Saldo wrote on his Telegram channel on September 17.
“Recently, one of the regional military commissars in the territory controlled by Kiev said that out of those mobilized last fall only 10% remained in service. The rest simply served as cannon fodder. The probability of dying or becoming crippled is 90%," the acting head of the Kherson region concluded.