As the war has developed, so has Ukraine’s war medicine. The shift to NATO standards is vital as the country prepares for its counteroffensive. Mihir Melwani reports
“In the American army, critically injured troops are rescued within the hour. On our front line, it may be two days,” Oleksiy Dronov tells a platoon of soldiers. “Today, we will not become doctors. We’ll only learn to give each other enough time to get to a stabilisation point.”
Dronov is a volunteer medical trainer from the Prytula Foundation, one of Ukraine’s largest charities that provides support services to the defence forces of Ukraine and aid to civilians affected by the war. His job is to prepare the soldiers for the inevitable casualties of combat. He and trainers like him are experts in the most up-to-date, NATO standard, tactical medicine. As the Ukrainian army becomes more westernised, so do its medical practices.
Dronov and his team arrived in the morning, but the infantry troops he’s training were dropped into the forests of Ukraine’s Kyiv region days ago. Since their arrival they’ve dug trenches, set up reconnaissance positions, and learnt to observe the “enemy.” They’ve entered a simulated front line designed to prepare the troops for combat, and they’ll rotate out to the very real front line within weeks. The thunder of artillery is audible in the distance, as troops from other units train using howitzers in the same forest.
Some soldiers are on their third deployment; others will experience the horrors of war for the first time. But there are smiles all around—an air of confidence in this tough training environment. Today, they’ll learn to save each other.
The platoon is learning tactical combat casualty care (TCCC) procedures, taking just over a day to run through the critical skills needed to save each …