Editor’s note: WARNING: This article contains details that some readers may find offensive.
Kostyantinivka, Ukraine
CNN
—
Artillery shells have hit the street outside Vyacheslav Tarasov’s home on the front line in eastern Ukraine. The surrounding buildings are mostly empty, windowless and cold.
For months Bakhmut has faced the relentless firepower of frustrated Russian forces. In pursuit of an increasingly rare battlefield victory, Moscow destroyed buildings with rockets and missiles and sent endless waves of infantry to fight among the destroyed homes.
Tarasov, 48, was sheltering from artillery fire in the basement where he now lives. But last week he took the plunge and stepped outside. He bought vegetables and made a national dish of borscht.
“I don’t know what was used,” he recalls. “But the power was incredible. His arm flew off, so it was…his hand was holding his internal organs.”
His face is pale, conveying a raw image that is still in my mind. “I was wearing a leather jacket. Without it, I would have been blown away. I mean, my guts would be all over the place…I lost a lot of blood. I remember seeing it—a huge puddle.
The blast that tore through Tarasov’s body killed his friend, and as the shelling continued, he realized he might not make it either. “I prayed that I would survive.”
Tarasov is a devout Christian and believes that an “invisible force” saved his life. He also thanks the Ukrainian soldiers who put him in a pickup truck and took him to a hospital in Kostyantinivka.
When Tarasov arrived, he asked the doctor to save his limb. I saw it hanging on my sleeve.And my stomach was on fire.I thought my intestines must have come out.There was blood everywhere.”
Medical staff in Kostiantynivka continue to work despite blackouts and water shortages caused by repeated Russian attacks on the power grid. One day last week they had to rely on a generator to keep the lights and heat on.
“Sometimes the power goes out,” chief surgeon Dr. Yuri Mishasti told CNN, still wearing scrubs. “Water comes by the hour, not regularly. There was a catastrophic shelling incident, so we had no water over the weekend.”
A 62-year-old surgeon just finished operating on a woman who was rushed in earlier that afternoon.
“She is a resident of Bahmut. She was hit by artillery shells and had shrapnel wounds in her abdomen and damaged several organs. We see people with these wounds every day. every day.”
As Russian forces intensify their operations to take Bakhmut, artillery fire moves closer and closer to Kostiantinivka, 25 kilometers (about 15 miles) to the west. According to the hospital director, the town has been attacked almost daily since the beginning of the month.
Meanwhile, medical staff hear the constant sound of artillery firing around Bahmut. This is an unwelcome signal that another patient may be on the operating table soon.
“It’s been pretty noisy lately,” says Khassan El-Kafarna, a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) surgeon who resides at the hospital. His colleague, nurse Lucia Maron, agrees. “I think there’s more movement in general, more troops, more people,” she says. You will be able to understand what
Local authorities have been pleading with civilians to leave the area for months. But for Tarasov, like many people living in Ukraine’s old industrial heartland, it seemed impossible to leave his hometown in search of a safer place.
“If I had a lot of money, I would like to live abroad,” says Tarasov. “But I had no money and everything I saved was invested there. I had no money and nowhere to go.”
To stay with Bahmut was to hold on to the rest of his life, which he worked hard for in peacetime. That life is now irrevocably changed.
Builders came to Ukraine before the war, says Tarasov. Now I can’t even wind a major.
“I’m half human, half zombie. Half human to be exact.”
