The graves of fallen soldiers in a cemetery outside Kharkiv, Ukraine. (c. Martin Kuz)
The military van had entered Bakhmut when the artillery shell struck. The explosion threw the five Ukrainian medics clear of their ambulance. One of them, Denis, opened his eyes and wondered why he was no longer driving. Then his thoughts gave way to pain beyond words.
Fractured vertebrae. Broken ribs. Shrapnel in his chest and leg. Brain trauma. Each of his comrades suffered similar injuries or worse. The medics were now the wounded.
Seven months after that blast in late 2022, Denis sat in the bedroom of an abandoned house 10 miles from the front in the eastern region of Donetsk. Summer sunlight filtered through a window’s floral curtains as artillery echoed in the distance.
The village where we met and others nearby serve as ad hoc military garrisons, with troops living in the homes of residents who fled the bloodshed. Beneath his camouflage uniform, Denis had a metal rod in his spine and scars across his torso and right calf.
He had rejoined a medical unit a few weeks earlier against the advice of army doctors, who urged him to return to civilian life. “I’ll retire when the war is over,” he told them.
Denis, 33, explained his reasoning to me. “I can’t go to the zero line, but there’s still a lot I can do,” he said. He treats and helps evacuate wounded soldiers brought to stabilization points, areas near the front line but away from the heaviest fighting. “If everybody said ‘I can’t’ — if everybody sat out after an injury — we would lose.”
He viewed the extreme risks of his new role as tame compared to working in Bakhmut. The ruined city had fallen to Russian forces two months earlier. “You think you cannot come back from this place,” he said. “You look at people and think, ‘Maybe I’ll never see you again.’”
He shared that, beyond chronic physical pain, his time there had burdened him with dark memories and jagged dreams. “But it would be worse if we let Russia take Ukraine’s land,” Denis said. He wanted his young daughter, who lives with his ex-wife in the occupied region of Luhansk, to inherit a free nation. His eyes glazed with tears as he spoke of her. “This is why we are here.”
In 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and sent troops in unmarked uniforms into Donetsk and Luhansk, starting his invasion of Ukraine. Two years later, Denis, then a veterinary student, decided to enlist. He weighed whether to train as a sniper or medic. His parents nudged him to save lives rather than take them.
His efforts to keep Ukrainian soldiers alive deepen his fury toward the country that tries to kill them. He stopped speaking Russian — the prevailing language in eastern Ukraine and the one he learned growing up — on the day Putin launched his wider invasion in 2022. “Never again,” he told me. “This is a dead language for me.”
As our conversation wound down, we stepped into the front yard, where we heard a faint mewling above us in a shade tree. Denis reached up through a tangle of branches to rescue a frightened kitten.
The Ukrainian military asks that journalists identify soldiers only by their first names and call signs. Denis smiled as the tabby quieted in his arms. I saw the kindness in his face and understood why he is known as Angel.
(c. Martin Kuz)
******
After months of delay, Congress appears close to passing a bill to provide $61 billion in desperately needed military and economic aid to Ukraine. The vote could happen Saturday, and if the measure wins approval, there’s little doubt that far-right Republicans in Washington — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sen. J.D. Vance foremost among them — will bray even more loudly in defeat.
When you hear or read the pro-Russian propaganda spread by such self-avowed “patriots” — statements laced with the same distortions and disinformation that the Kremlin circulates — I hope you’ll remember Denis. He embodies the spirit of a people who have chosen to fight for democracy against the forces of fascism, who will neither abandon Ukraine nor the future of their sons and daughters.
Etc.
— My sincere thanks to Postindustrial and its editor, Carmen Gentile, for the chance to offer a few thoughts on Ukraine, my family ties to the country and where the war could be headed.
— Each of my parents survived a genocidal tyrant before arriving in America: Stalin for my late father, Hitler for my mother. Their experiences made them supporters of Ronald Reagan and his crusade against despotism. Thirty years after the Soviet Union imploded, the GOP has surrendered itself to Donald Trump, who offers praise for Putin and his imperialist regime. I wrote about the party’s bewildering shift from Reagan to Trump for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. (If you can't access the story through that link, try this one.)
— Thanks as always for reading, and please drop a comment below if you’re a paid subscriber. I hope you’ll join me in sharing this newsletter on social media and elsewhere. You can also support my self-funded reporting here. Thank you.
Such a powerful and wrenching story, Martin. This work is so important. Thank you for bearing witness to this atrocity.