2023.08.02

 Wounded just 40 minutes earlier on Ukraine’s southern 

front in the Zaporizhzhia region, the soldiers from the 

110th Brigade had arrived at a stabilization point, one 

of a dozen medical stations set up by the Ukrainian Army 

within a few miles of the front line to ensure critical, lifesaving care.

 Positioned close to the front lines, the stabilization points, 

temporary medical posts where patients are stabilized for 

onward evacuation, have been receiving a constant inflow 

of soldiers wounded in the fighting. 

 The numbers have been “colossal,” said a medic from the 

center where the three men from the 110th Brigade were treated.

 The aim is to ensure that each wounded soldier receives a high 

level of care within as little as 25 minutes of the injury in order 

to save lives, he said. It is not always possible. 

 A combat medic on the front line quickly administers first aid, 

but Russian artillery fire is often so intense that sometimes units 

cannot evacuate the wounded for hours, medics said.

 The ambulances that transport soldiers to the stabilization points 

frequently come under fire as well, and soldiers sometimes have 

to drag or carry the wounded for several miles on foot to a vehicle. 

One stabilization point was hit in a missile strike one recent night, 

doctors said.

 The staff stayed undercover most of the time to keep out of 

sight of Russian reconnaissance drones. 

 At night, they worked in the dark for security, mostly using 

a red light, which is less detectable, on their headlamps.

 The casualties arrived in spurts and on some days in a 

continuous rush. There were dozens of mine injuries and 

shrapnel wounds, but so far in this counteroffensive, 

few bullet wounds, doctors said.

 Some doctors said they had seen worse casualties in

 battles last year; one said they were treating up to 

250 people a day back then in the counteroffensive 

in Kherson region.

 In the first months after the Russian invasion last year, 

many soldiers did not have body armor or helmets and 

suffered often lethal injuries to the head and chest, 

said Dr. Andrii Komarinets, the head of medical services 

for the 110th Brigade, who runs one of the larger 

stabilization points.

 But the army was short of doctors and especially of nurses, 

he said. “We don’t have enough hands,” he said.

 An administrator silently lifted a thick stack of medical reports 

from the last week, one for each patient. 

 They had treated more than 70 people that day, and more were 

on their way, he said.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/world/europe/ukraine-war-casualties-wounded.html?searchResultPosition=1