“The first time they brought in wounded soldiers, I had never seen anything like it in my life. They arrived covered in soot, blood, and dust. [...] There were cases where a soldier was brought in with a leg barely hanging by shreds. What do you do? You take scissors, cut it off, and put it in a bag,” says Gytis, a military doctor who worked in Ukraine and pulled hundreds of soldiers from the brink of death.
Gytis has travelled to Ukraine three times for work. Each time, he was stationed at stabilisation centres just 10 to 15 kilometres from the frontlines, where wounded soldiers were brought in. He agreed to speak with LRT.lt to share his experiences and describe what daily life is like for a military medic in Ukraine.
How did you decide to go to Ukraine?
I would start by saying that in 1993, I joined the Lithuanian military as a military physician. In total, I have participated in six missions with the Lithuanian military as a military doctor. I’ve been to Afghanistan and Bosnia and Herzegovina, so going to Ukraine was not a shock for me.
A few years ago, I turned 60 and had to retire. Suddenly, I felt unneeded, but after 32 years in the military, I still wanted to contribute to Lithuania and the armed forces.
Then the war started, and I was a military doctor. I wanted to put my skills to use, as I had never worked under real wartime conditions before. Ukraine and Afghanistan are not the same. I started looking for ways to get to Ukraine. Initially, I went as part of a humanitarian aid mission and made connections with Ukrainians there. They told me, “You’re a doctor – why can’t you come help us? We need people like you.”
That was how, last spring, I packed my backpack, helmet, and vest and left. I arrived at an airborne training ground, and they simply left me there with my backpack. Within a month and a half, I was examined by a medical commission, signed a contract, completed all necessary training, and officially joined the Ukrainian army.
And then straight to the stabilisation point?
Yes.
Do you remember your first day there?
Very well. We travelled to a small town near New York [a settlement in the Bakhmut district, Donetsk region], where intense fighting was taking place last summer. The first time I saw wounded soldiers brought in, I had never seen anything like it. They were covered in soot, blood, and dust. Some had been injured on the front lines and remained there for five, six, even twelve hours with tourniquets still on. Their bandages were dried with blood, impossible to remove. The soldiers were drenched in blood.
What is the main role of a stabilisation centre?
The primary goal is to keep severely injured soldiers alive and prevent minor injuries from becoming life-threatening. We didn’t perform surgeries there. I asked why since we had anesthesiologists, surgeons, and trauma specialists. They explained that if we started performing operations, some doctors would be occupied for two to three hours. In that time, 20 more wounded soldiers could arrive. If we focused on one, we could lose ten others.
Our job was to stabilise – treat life-threatening injuries, clean and dress wounds, stop bleeding. Then we sent the soldiers to hospitals where they could undergo surgery or amputation if needed. But sometimes, a soldier arrived with a leg hanging by a thread. What do you do? You take scissors, cut it off, and put it in a bag.
Describe a typical day on the job.
We had a routine – first, we had to completely undress and wash the soldiers to assess all injuries. When we washed them, they saw we were helping, and they thanked us. The Ukrainian medics, in turn, would say, “No, thank you. You’re the one fighting on the front lines. We’re 10–15 kilometers away.”
There were emotional moments. Some soldiers arrived freezing, especially in autumn. They were trembling, so we used hairdryers to warm them up by directing hot air under their clothes.
I also noticed that many soldiers were extremely thin. When I asked if they were being fed, they told me, “Doctor, what can we do? We’re supposed to be on the front line for three days, then rotate out. But sometimes we’re stuck there for six to twelve days. We have to choose what to take – food, water, or ammunition. Of course, we choose ammunition. Also, if you eat, you have to relieve yourself, and you can’t leave the trench because drones will spot you. So we try to eat as little as possible.”
These are the kinds of details you only understand by being there. For example, when we undressed a soldier, what did we put on him? We didn’t have new uniforms to give. Fortunately, local civilians donated clothes. You can’t win a war without soldiers, the state, and civilians. I realised in Ukraine how crucial civilians are in supporting the troops. They bring food – not because there’s no food, but because it boosts morale.
The state simply cannot provide everything soldiers need in wartime, including medical supplies. Each unit has its own supply network. For example, my brigade worked with pharmacists who collected medications and brought them to stabilisation centres weekly.
Support is critical. I remember when my colleagues first brought me to the stabilisation centre and asked how much of the medical equipment I thought was provided by the government. I guessed, “All of it?” They laughed and said, “Almost everything here was donated by charities and civilians.”
As a surgeon, have you ever seen injuries like those in Ukraine?
You can’t even imagine. Some NATO soldiers train in South Africa’s military hospitals to study trauma cases, but this is different. Pickup trucks would arrive, dump five wounded soldiers, and speed back to the front. No armoured ambulances. Nothing like that.
Can you describe the working conditions?
Impossible to put into words. Stabilisation centers are set up in unsanitary locations – garages, old hunting lodges. There’s trash everywhere, makeshift tables, no running water, outdoor toilets, a terrible stench, flies buzzing. Villages in the middle of nowhere. No cleanliness, no sterility. The floors are never washed. I wore rubber boots and shorts all summer to make it easier to clean off the blood. I tell people back home – we wouldn’t know how to operate in these conditions. And the environment is dangerous. You never know when the shelling will start.
Russian tactics are simple: days of quiet, then a sudden attack – like targeting marketplaces. Sometimes locals give away coordinates. We were also shelled, and shrapnel was flying everywhere. I even brought some back to Lithuania.
What condition were the wounded soldiers in? Were they conscious and able to communicate?
I want to emphasise that the human body is remarkable. It may seem easy to kill someone, but when a person is wounded, the body mobilises in extraordinary ways. Soldiers would arrive six to eight hours after being injured, having lost a significant amount of blood, yet they remained conscious. When I was near New York [in the Donetsk region] for the first time, out of the 600 soldiers I treated, only three or four were in agony. About 60 percent of the wounded had lost arms or legs. Many others suffered concussions, vomiting, and other symptoms. Some had already died, but their numbers were relatively low. Under such conditions, those who had perished were often left in fields and retrieved later. However, those with severe injuries were still conscious. The body somehow mobilises itself. Soldiers would arrive with torn limbs, tourniquets in place, and yet they were alert and communicative.
What were the most common injuries?
We were taught that most injuries would be gunshot wounds. However, there were hardly any cases of bullet wounds. The most common injuries were severed limbs. Reports suggest that there are about 40,000 people in Ukraine who have lost arms or legs.
There were very few abdominal or chest injuries because everyone wore protective vests. Most injuries involved arms and legs, primarily from drone-exploded shrapnel. I recall one soldier whose back was covered in approximately 50 pieces of shrapnel. But no one removes them – they remain where they are. Some pieces lodge under the skin and may later press against nerves, causing pain. If necessary, a doctor might intervene. Ukrainians even devised a method using magnets to extract shrapnel, but generally, no one bothers.
You mentioned many soldiers arrived with injured limbs and applied tourniquets. How long can a limb be constricted before it is beyond saving?
It’s a complicated issue. Some soldiers arrived with tourniquets applied for over five hours. By then, the limbs had turned blue. Some even had tourniquets placed on healthy limbs. I recall one case where a soldier was hit in the head by shrapnel and lost consciousness. Blood from his head wound ran down his arm. Fellow soldiers saw the blood-covered limb and hastily applied a tourniquet. When he regained consciousness, he saw the tourniquet and assumed it was necessary. He was brought to us six hours later – by then, his arm had no circulation, and amputation was inevitable, even though the limb had been uninjured.
Another case involved a soldier who had been in combat for two and a half years. His mental state had deteriorated, and he deliberately shot himself in the leg, hoping to be discharged. He arrived after eight hours. By then, the leg was dead and had to be amputated. Since he had inflicted the wound himself, he would not receive disability benefits or compensation.
It’s important to note that soldiers can only be evacuated at night. If you’re injured in the morning, you might as well say goodbye to your leg. If you’re wounded in the evening, there’s a chance it can be saved because you’ll be evacuated overnight.
How long can a tourniquet be applied before a limb is unsalvageable?
Ukrainian doctors generally believe a limb can remain constricted for three to four hours before it becomes impossible to save. They monitor skin colour, loosen the tourniquet slightly, and so on. However, there’s a serious issue: when the tourniquet is removed, circulation resumes, but dead cells can block the kidneys, leading to kidney failure, then liver failure, and ultimately death.
Can a person with a severed limb and a tourniquet survive for 24 hours?
Yes, if the tourniquet is applied correctly. However, there are other risks, such as infection. Another issue is blood loss. A person who loses a leg can lose up to 1–1.5 litres of blood, which can lead to circulatory collapse and heart failure. Hypothermia also becomes a risk.
But sometimes survival stories are astonishing. Doctors told me about a wounded soldier who crawled for about a week from the front lines. He would move, pass out, wake up, and keep going.
Did the wounded soldiers experience pain? Did they have strong painkillers?
They had no morphine, ketamine – nothing. Everyone screamed, everyone was in pain. It was like a slaughterhouse – horrific. Blood, severed limbs, soot-covered bodies, bloody clothing.
Did you perform blood transfusions?
No, but there’s an ongoing discussion about it. Medical guidelines recommend administering blood as soon as possible to improve clotting and circulation. However, we didn’t have a supply. Hospitals where we sent the soldiers had blood, but we did not.
Were there foreign doctors at the stabilisation point?
No, only me. At the beginning of the war, anyone could go. But now, for security reasons, Ukraine only allows contracted medics to work near the front. They undergo background checks to ensure they have no ties to Russia before receiving military clearance.
Are medics targeted in combat?
Yes. In the autumn, we were told to set up a stabilisation centre just two to three kilometres from the frontline. Normally, such centres are 10–15 kilometres away. We asked why, and the answer was grim: no one was left to retrieve the wounded. All paramedics had been killed. If evacuations happened during the day, Russians would attack with drones. So, the stabilisation centre had to be as close as possible so any soldier could bring in the wounded.
Were you personally a target in Ukraine?
No direct attacks, but security was crucial. We couldn’t reveal our location or activities. We avoided talking to civilians, wore plain clothes, kept lights off at night, and stayed inside whenever possible. Choosing the right location was vital for survival. Previously, soldiers set up in cultural centres, theatres, and schools, but the Russians would discover and target them immediately.
Do you plan to return?
Yes. I want to go to a forward military hospital where wounded soldiers from stabilisation centres are taken. Those operating rooms are cleaner, and doctors can spend more time on each patient. I’m working on my paperwork, and once it’s ready, I’ll go. Our doctors are highly skilled, but not everyone can handle working in such an environment.
Do you share your experiences with the Lithuanian military?
Not as much as I’d like. Some are willing to listen, but changing large institutions takes time. My goal wasn’t money, adventure, or adrenaline – I wanted to bring back knowledge of how war works against such an outlaw state [Russia]. How to stay safe, manage logistics, maintain communication, eat, and survive. Many small details can make a big difference, and you can’t learn them without experiencing war firsthand.
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