![Pinterest](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://uknews.evprotec.com/where-ukraines-army-of-amputees-go-to-repair-their-lives/&media=https://uknews.evprotec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/131130166_img_0455.jpg&description=Image source, Goktay Koraltan/BBC Image caption, After Andrii Smolenska was wounded in battle, his wife Alina rushed to his side As Ukraine's counter-offensive grinds on - with limited gains and no decisive breakthrough - the number of amputees in the country is soaring. There were 15,000 in the first half of this year alone, according to the Department of Health in Kyiv. The ministry won't disclose how many are soldiers. The authorities guard casualty figures closely, but the vast majority are likely to be military. That's more amputees in six months than the UK had in the six years of World War II, when 12,000 of its servicemen and women lost limbs. There may be many more to come in Europe's newest war. Ukraine is the most heavily mined country in the world, according to the country's former defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov. Russia's war is creating an army of amputees here, a conveyor belt of broken bodies. We meet some of them at a rehabilitation clinic in the capital, Kyiv, and a hospital in south-east Ukraine. Alina Smolenska's only thought when her husband Andrii was wounded was to get to his bedside. "I just wanted to be with him, to touch him, to say that he's not alone," she says. "In situations like this, when a person needs support, I would touch their hand." But when she reached him in hospital that was impossible. "I saw that Andrii really didn't have his hands, so I just touched his leg and started to talk to him," she says. "I said: 'We are a family. Don't worry. Of course, there will be some harsh moments, but we are together'." Hours earlier, Andrii Smolenski had been commanding a small reconnaissance unit on Ukraine's southern front. Image caption, Andrii was an unlikely soldier but quickly volunteered to fight As the 27-year-old started climbing out of a trench, an explosion ripped through earth and sky. His next memory is of waking up in hospital. "It felt like a dream," he says, "everything was so dark." Slowly, he realised he couldn't move h){kind=link}
As Ukraine’s counter-offensive grinds on – with limited gains and no decisive breakthrough – the number of amputees in the country is soaring.
There were 15,000 in the first half of this year alone, according to the Department of Health in Kyiv. The ministry won’t disclose how many are soldiers. The authorities guard casualty figures closely, but the vast majority are likely to be military.
That’s more amputees in six months than the UK had in the six years of World War II, when 12,000 of its servicemen and women lost limbs.
There may be many more to come in Europe’s newest war. Ukraine is the most heavily mined country in the world, according to the country’s former defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov.
Russia’s war is creating an army of amputees here, a conveyor belt of broken bodies.