Putin’s tactic to destroy Ukraine’s entire health system mapped out

Ukrainian medics visited the UK – alongside an ambulance from Kherson that was bombed by Russian forces on October 5, 2023 (Picture: Ukraine Solidarity Project)

There is a joke among medics in Ukraine that Vladimir Putin’s troops translate Red Cross signs on ambulances as ‘target here’.

As soon as the first Russian tanks crossed into Ukrainian territory on February 24, 2022, it was evident that Geneva Convention’s ‘laws of war’ were tossed out, in a new chapter of Eastern European history.

Hospitals, medical centres, pharmacies and paramedics – it is all fair game for the Kremlin as the conflict rages on.

With every day of the full-scale invasion – now entering its third year – Ukraine’s health system has seen an average of nearly two attacks per day, totalling 1,336.

Metro.co.uk mapped out almost 1,000 such assaults, illustrating Russia’s strategy to destroy critical infrastructure.

Data shows 699 attacks damaged or destroyed hospitals and clinics; 75 affected children’s hospitals and 54 affected women’s health facilities.

A map showing Russian attacks on Ukraine’s healthcare system (Picture: eyeWitness to Atrocities, Insecurity Insight, Media Initiative for Human Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Ukrainian Healthcare Center)

Meanwhile, 198 health workers were killed and 137 more were injured.

Canadian volunteer combat medic, Brandon Mitchell, cheated death twice while in Ukraine.

His unit had to abandon a medical checkpoint in Zaporizhzhia after hearing on a captured radio that the Russian military was planning to bomb it.

Less than 24 hours later – after fleeing the position – the centre was incinerated in the strike.

‘Russia knew it was a medical point, so they blew the s**t out of it, but we were all gone before that and that is just normal,’ he told Metro.co.uk.

The second time, Brandon drove an ambulance through two enemy mines during an evacuation, triggering an explosion.

It was a miracle the 37-year-old survived. He was seriously wounded and spent six weeks in hospital recovering. To this day, the trauma of the attack still haunts him.

Before getting blown up, the paramedic had helped rescue four children, but he still felt guilt.

A hospital building destroyed as a result of a missile attack in Selydove, Donetsk region (Picture: AFP)

‘In the hour after getting pulled out the ambulance, I felt like I have done enough. I do not have to do anymore,’ Brandon said.

‘I do not have to go back and prove that I am a man. I was very scared that week, it was difficult.

‘Later on, I was guilty about the relief and happiness that I felt, but it is a natural human reaction.

‘I do not know how you write that s**t. Sorry about my language, but that is the truth.’

Iryna Kalinina, 32, an injured pregnant woman, is carried from a maternity hospital that was damaged during a Russian airstrike in Mariupol on March9, 2022 (Picture: AP)

A common tactic for Russia is to wait for about 30 minutes after bombing civilian targets and then, as soon as first responders arrive at the scene, to strike a second time.

Just like during Syria’s civil war, Brandon said this ‘double tap’ attack is what often gets emergency crews killed or injured.

This is how some of his colleagues died in the strike at the railway station in the city of Kramatorsk in April 2022. 

Brandon arrived in Ukraine shortly after the beginning of the invasion, delivering humanitarian aid from Lviv to Kharkiv.

A wounded woman stands outside a hospital after the bombing of the eastern Ukrainian town of Chuguiv on February 24, 2022 (Picture: AFP)

Eventually, he joined the Hospitallers, a volunteer medical battalion providing first aid and evacuating wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the warzone.

He took a brief respite from helping on the frontline to travel to the UK where he toured cities with the wreckage of a bombed ambulance brought all the way from Kherson in the week before the two-year anniversary.

Kateryna Pryimak, co-founder of Ukrainian Women’s Veteran Movement, joined the group of paramedics in London and was pictured holding a sign that read,’ I am a Ukrainian medic and I brought this ambulance targeted by Russia for all to see. There’s many more…’

When war broke out in eastern Ukraine in 2014, she could not just sit peacefully at home, so she signed up for the Hospitallers.

Health specialist, Igor, travels to the designated point to pick up wounded Ukrainian soldiers in Avidiivka on October 24, 2023 (Picture: Getty)

She spent 11 months as a paramedic, with all her rotations taking place in what was the hottest spots near Donetsk airport.

In 2022, when Putin returned with vengeance, she switched to humanitarian aid.

Kateryna has witnessed some of the most harrowing parts of the invasion – from women soldiers carrying grenades with them at all time to blow themselves up in case Russians try to capture them and rape them, to direct attacks on ambulances transporting wounded civilians.

She said: ‘We live in a reality, which your mind cannot understand at all. It is like a computer game, like Call of Duty. We live in grief.

Kateryna (middle) and Brandon (right) with their Ukrainian colleagues (Picture: Chris J Ratcliffe)

‘Whatever you do as a medic, you are helpless against the huge bombs that come your way every 10 minutes. I did not have a gun to protect myself.’

Kateryna recalled an incident in 2014 when Russians used a captured Ukrainian radio to call for medical assistance in the east.

When they arrived at the scene, enemy soldiers began shooting at them in what turned out to be a Russian tactic deployed throughout the war.

She said: ‘If soldiers kill all the medics, this means all Ukrainian troops and civilians will have no one to treat them.’

In addition to direct attacks on the health system, Russian soldiers have been detaining and threatening healthcare workers.

Patients in occupied Ukrainian territories have also been blackmailed to change their nationality to access treatment in a process referred to as ‘passportization’.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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