UKRAINE: Getting Ready to Fight Again

Thousands of Ukrainian troops have lost limbs stepping on Russian land mines. A U.S.-based charity is helping a lucky few of them get fitted for prosthetics

- MICHAEL WASIURA 

AS CASUALTIES CONTINUE TO MOUNT NEARLY A year and a half into Russia's war against Ukraine, one American charity has stepped up to help Ukrainian soldiers who have sacrificed limbs in defense of their country and yet still seek to return to the battlefield. For these troops and New York Citybased nonprofit Kind Deeds, the oft-cited phrase rings true: Only the dead have seen the end of war.

"In October 2022, our first two active duty Ukrainian soldiers traveled to New York to get their prosthetics fitted," Oleksandr Rubtsov, the Ukrainian American president of Kind Deeds told Newsweek during a visit to Warsaw, Poland, in May.

"Thanks to our help, over 20 soldiers are already back on their feet, but we have 200 on our waiting list, and it would take 100 more organizations like ours to fully meet the need." The true scope of the crisis may be even larger. The Ukrainian military is very secretive about casualty statistics, but sources in a position to know put the number of wounded soldiers  awaiting a prosthetic leg or legs at over 10,000.

Like many of the volunteer groups that have sprung up to aid Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Kind Deeds began simply by doing what it could. On the second day of the war, Rubtsov, who had been working in Miami real estate after moving from his native Kremenchuk in 2015, bought an airplane ticket to Krakow, Poland. From there, he began organizing evacuations of Ukrainian civilians caught in the warzone. "Our first project was to rent three 50-seat buses, and for two months we were bringing people out of Kyiv, Irpin and Bucha," he says.