Like most of those in the hospital, he was injured fighting in the Donetsk region. Some of those being treated do have friends and family there for support. 'Twenty-four hours a day, constant shooting, all the time… if not (Russian) infantry, then artillery.' Straining to speak in the hospital’s intensive care unit, he says his platoon saw the tank coming, but artillery hit them before they could reach their grenade launcher. Oleh Halah, 22, arrives, injured by artillery from a Russian tank near Lyman in the Donetsk region. Once treated, the soldiers are sent off to recover elsewhere to create space for the next night’s intake. Soldiers with bandaged limbs soaked in blood. Once stabilised, they are brought to Mechnikov, a journey that can sometimes take half a day. Wounded soldiers are typically cared for in hospitals closer to the front line. Providing roughly 400 doctors spread across six buildings, Mechnikov largely works as a normal hospital during the day, helping patients with cancer and chronic diseases.īut by night it becomes a military hospital. 'We have 50 operating rooms, and it’s not enough.' 'Here we see the worst of the front line,' he says.

Surgeons say they're busier now than at any other time since Russia invaded 18 months ago.Īnywhere from 50 to 100 surgeries are needed every night, The Associated Press report.ĭr Serhii Ryzhenko is the hospital’s chief doctor. Medics at the hospital are deliberately vague about the number of injuries they're having to treat.īut they say there's been a surge in wounded soldiers arriving since the beginning of Ukraine's major counteroffensive in early June. Sitting in the eastern Donetsk region, it takes in soldiers fighting in multiple parts of the 900-mile front line in the south and the Russian-occupied eastern regions. Mechnikov is one of Ukraine's biggest hospitals.

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