More than 140,000 veterans of Russia’s war against Ukraine now live in the Kyiv region alone. For many returning from the front with prosthetic limbs, coming home marks the beginning of a different battle — one fought not in the trenches, but in hospitals, government offices and everyday life.
Armed Forces veteran Andriy knows that reality firsthand. Wounded near Chasiv Yar, outside Bakhmut, while leading his unit on a combat mission, he lost his leg below the knee. He also sustained serious injuries to both knees and spent months recovering before being fitted with a prosthesis.
In this interview with The Ukrainian Week, Andriy speaks about the reality of life after injury — from prosthetics and rehabilitation to the bureaucracy that often complicates recovery. He also discusses what Ukrainian society still needs to learn as more veterans return home with permanent, life-changing injuries.
“Prosthetics are never just about the prosthesis — they’re about how different specialists work together”
“From what I’ve seen firsthand, the success of a prosthetic limb — whether someone is able to walk, run or simply move with confidence — depends on three things: the surgery itself and how the residual limb is shaped, rehabilitation to restore joint function and muscle mobility, and the design and fitting of the prosthesis.
The problem is that these three stages are treated as separate disciplines. Each specialist focuses on their own part of the process, often with little consideration for what comes next. Take the field triage station — the first medical facility where a wounded soldier is taken immediately (after being injured – ed.). The priority there is straightforward: save the patient’s life. At that stage, no one is thinking about how the surgery will affect the person’s future prosthetic outcome.
By the time a patient is transferred to a hospital, the focus shifts to stabilising the injury and getting it to heal as quickly as possible so the bed can be freed for the next casualty. Whether the residual limb has been shaped in a way that will allow for the best possible prosthetic fit often becomes a secondary consideration.
In my case, after I stepped on a landmine, they performed a partial foot amputation right at the field triage station. Believe it or not, I left carrying the amputated part of my foot in a trash bag. They simply had no way to dispose of it there, so they gave it back to me. When I eventually got to the hospital in Kharkiv, I handed it over for disposal. By the time I arrived in Kharkiv, the doctors were focused on the surgery that would shape the residual limb — the part where the prosthesis would later be attached.
And that’s where, in my opinion, the biggest problem starts. There’s no real coordination between surgeons and prosthetists. Everyone does their own job separately. Surgeons operate according to the protocols they’re used to, but they don’t always think about what comes next — how the person is actually going to be fitted with a prosthesis.”
For Andriy, the story doesn’t end with the surgery: “The way the system works, not every prosthesis will fit every person. Even a difference of a couple of centimetres can matter. In my case, if they’d amputated my leg just two centimetres higher, I wouldn’t have been able to use the prosthesis I have today. I only got to this point after another operation in Lviv, where doctors treated an infection and reshaped my leg.
That’s why I keep saying everything has to be connected. The decisions made in the first hours after an injury affect everything that comes later. If you want someone to have the best chance of walking, working and living a normal life with a prosthesis, surgeons, rehabilitation specialists and prosthetists all have to be thinking several steps ahead.”
According to Andriy, one such issue is the approach to bone preparation during amputation: “Our surgeons often make a straight cut across the bone. In many clinics abroad, they tend to cut it at an angle and then smooth or round off the edges.
The problem is that even if the wound heals well after the amputation, it can still cause problems later. Once you start walking on a prosthesis and putting weight on it every day, the bone can begin pressing against the soft tissue. In some cases, it can even break through the skin. That’s what happened to me – the wound became infected, and I had to go through another operation. They had to remove more of the bone to reshape the limb properly. Ironically, that second surgery is what finally made it possible to fit the prosthesis the way it should have been from the start.
There’s also another important piece that people often don’t realise. After an amputation, the calf muscles gradually shrink, so patients have to go through compression therapy to speed up that process and help prepare the residual limb for prosthetic fitting.”
“The demand is there — the market is growing — but we’re running out of specialists”
The veteran points to another systemic problem: “There’s a set timeline for when you’re supposed to get a prosthesis after an amputation. It doesn’t matter whether you’re actually ready or not — once that date comes, the process moves ahead.
In my case, my leg wasn’t ready. When I got the prosthesis and tried to stand on it, I couldn’t. The bone pushed against the skin, the wound opened up again, and it became infected. By that point, I had already moved from surgery to rehabilitation. That’s when it became clear that the doctors and specialists involved at different stages weren’t really working together. Everyone was focused on their own part of the process, but no one was looking at the bigger picture.”
Russia’s full-scale invasion has transformed Ukraine’s prosthetics sector. Demand has soared, prompting a wave of new prosthetics providers. Yet the industry remains heavily dependent on imported components, and every prosthesis must be designed and built for a single person, making it a highly individualised process.
“When I was fitted with my prosthesis, they used one of the most advanced technologies available — Direct Socket. With this method, the socket is fabricated directly on the patient’s residual limb, so it matches their anatomy as closely as possible. The result is a prosthesis that’s tailored to the person’s individual anthropometric characteristics and provides the best possible fit.
At the same time, there are companies that work differently. They rely on more standard, off-the-shelf solutions. It’s a bit like buying shoes: one pair doesn’t fit, another seems to fit, so they add special insoles and tell you to wear those instead.
A prosthesis can be made to a very high standard, but if the load-bearing axis is aligned incorrectly, it simply won’t work. You can think of the socket as a kind of cup that the rest of the prosthesis is attached to. If it’s positioned even slightly off — by just a few millimetres — the person will start experiencing pain and discomfort every time they walk.”
“A lot depends on having the right documents in place”
Ukraine provides free medical treatment and prosthetics through a state-funded programme — and, by most accounts, the system works. But for military personnel, access depends on more than medical need.
To qualify, a service member’s injury must have been sustained while carrying out duties related to Ukraine’s defence. Just as importantly, every required document must be in place.
“While you’re undergoing treatment, your documents are constantly being transferred between different medical facilities. That’s where things can go wrong. A document might get lost, never reach the next hospital, or simply be filled out incorrectly. One possible solution would be to create an electronic account for every wounded person, where all of their medical records would be collected automatically.”
Preparing for medical board examinations brings another set of challenges. “When I started getting my documents ready for the medical boards, I found out I had to keep the originals and submit notarised copies instead. Just imagine how much paperwork that is. There are notaries who do this free of charge for military personnel, but there aren’t many of them, and not everyone knows they exist.”
Looking for answers, Andriy reached out to veterans’ organisations and the Ministry of Veterans Affairs. That’s where he first heard about plans to build a peer support network for wounded veterans. The idea was simple: veterans who had already navigated the system would help those only beginning the journey after being injured. Beyond creating jobs for former service members, the programme aimed to give newly wounded veterans someone who understood the process firsthand — and could help them find their way through it.
At the time, though, the initiative was still more of an idea than a functioning system.
What’s next?
“The same day I received the Medical Examination Commission’s decision, I was discharged from military service. That also meant my financial benefits stopped immediately. After that, you enter a whole new stage — applying for disability status and social benefits. To do that, you first have to go through an assessment by an expert commission that evaluates your daily functioning and determines your disability category. It starts with a visit to your family doctor, who refers you to a specialist, and then the specialist refers you to the commission,” Andriy recalls.
“In my case, it took me nearly a month from submitting the paperwork to appearing before the medical commission. Only after your disability status is confirmed can you apply for benefits, compensation and a pension.
Until then, you’re basically left without a steady income. You have to rely on your savings or on family and friends. My family had already lost our home in the Donetsk region, so at first I stayed with a friend. Later, I was able to rent a place with help from people I knew.
Looking back, I can’t say the state or my fellow soldiers abandoned me. In the end, everything that mattered to me was sorted out. But I also know that many other veterans have had a very different experience.”
“Today, everyone — even children — should carry a tourniquet and know how to use it”
“We have to accept that more and more people around us will be living with physical or psychological injuries. And PTSD isn’t something only veterans experience — it can happen to anyone after severe trauma. I see a psychologist myself. It’s not something I choose to do; it’s something I need.”
“I really believe everyone should carry a tourniquet and know how to use it — adults, children, everyone. People think these injuries only happen at the front. They don’t. One missile can hit anywhere, any moment – and that will be it. The truth is, none of us knows where we’ll be when it happens. None of us can say we’re completely safe.”
For Andriy, learning how to stop severe bleeding should become as basic as learning first aid at school. “A person with life-threatening bleeding can die within minutes — often before an ambulance has time to arrive,” he insists.
For Andriy, recovery isn’t only about surgery or rehabilitation. It’s also about helping society get used to the reality that more people will be living with visible injuries and prosthetic limbs. He remembers one visit to a Montessori preschool in Rivne, where he spoke to young children about his prosthesis.
“I was once invited to a Montessori preschool to talk to the children and show them my prosthesis. Before we went in, I sat down with the teachers, and we walked through how we’d handle the conversation and what questions I’d answer. We agreed not to go into anything too traumatic, but we also agreed not to pretend it didn’t exist.
I think conversations like that really matter. Children should grow up seeing people with prosthetic limbs as part of everyday life. They shouldn’t see us as something unusual.
Because, sadly, this is the reality we’re living in. Every day, more people are being wounded. Every day, more people need prosthetic limbs. And even after the war is over, that won’t change overnight. It’ll take years before life starts to feel normal again. We have to learn to live with that reality.”
