In the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the wounded are being cared for from three fronts

A grimace on Sergei’s pale face, 24. A nurse from Metchnykov Hospital in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro treats one of his 28 wounds. Wherever you look, every part of your body has bandages or wounds. On April 8, he was injured at the front in the Donbas, he says. A smile only appears on his face when his wife Katja (24) enters. They immediately grab each other’s hands.

Sergei is frugal with personal data and also with information about the war: that dictates his contract with the Ukrainian army. He only gives his first name. Next to him is another wounded soldier, playing with his phone. A third just drove in. It’s rush hour. All morning the staff drives hospital beds with wounded soldiers onto the ward. One soldier has injuries to his eyes and damaged organs, another is missing a leg.

Key role of Dnipro

Metchnykov Hospital mainly treats seriously wounded soldiers and specializes in facial injuries. The soldiers come from the war fronts at Kharkov, north, Donbas, east, and Zaporizhia, south of Dnipro. It is, seen from the west, the last major Ukrainian city before the battle zone. As a result, Dnipro, which was home to around a million people before the war, plays a crucial role – and not just for the recovery of wounded soldiers. Dnipro takes in war refugees, humanitarian aid is sent from the city and there is support for soldiers at the front.

The war is noticeable in the city, but normal life also continues. The air raid siren sounds several times a day. On a terrace in a shopping street, the view is made up of barriers, concrete blocks and boarded up windows, but restaurants and cafes are open. The tram makes its rounds. At night it is quiet on the street, the curfew starts at 10 p.m. Soldiers stand guard on both sides at the central bridge over the Dnieper River.

We don’t want to run constantly. That is also difficult with four children

In a courtyard, men get bread from a delivery van, and then divide it between two smaller vans. Five minutes later they leave for different places on the front, to provide the soldiers with food. The men are some of the seven hundred volunteers of a government organization that works for the army and refugees, says volunteer Lyudmila Cherkez (28). She is involved in social media. “If we need anything, we put out a call.”

The organization is located in a building on the right bank of the river, on the side of the center. The entrance and the windows of the stairwell are barricaded with sandbags. Inside it is teeming with people. In the storage are bags and boxes containing macaroni, beans, sunflower oil, buckwheat, sauerkraut and pancakes filled with potatoes or meat, from the Netherlands and abroad. Cherkez: “Just like athletes, the soldiers want food that gives them energy.”

Dnipro is the transit point. “We store everything here and pass it on.” This also applies to bulletproof vests, tablets and drones. The volunteers also help with evacuations. Dnipro has more of these coordination and storage locations. They are deliberately spread across the city, Cherkez says, “to prevent a Russian bomb from knocking out all aid from Dnipro in one go.”

It has become routine

Dnipro also played an essential role in the war that started eight years ago in eastern Ukraine. From this city, his home base, oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky funded battalions to fight against pro-Russian separatists and the Russian army. At that time, too, the Metch-ny-kov hospital treated seriously wounded soldiers.

“We take the experience from those war years with us. It has become routine,” says surgeon Sergei Tarnopolski (55) after a day of surgery. He wears glasses and has a gray beard; he looks calm and radiates authority. “Nothing comes of a daily schedule. Suddenly a soldier can come in and we have to operate immediately.”

Tarnopolski knows his hospital can treat more wounded. In 2014 and 2015, 100 wounded soldiers came in every day, he says. At the moment there are an average of forty to fifty a day – much more than the ten to twenty at the beginning of March.

A continuous upward trend, Tarnopolski says. A sign that the war on the three fronts is intensifying. The surgeon expects “more seriously injured soldiers and more operations” in the coming weeks. 3 to 4 percent of the soldiers brought in die.

Volunteer Cherkez also sees that the fighting is increasing. The number of refugees in Dnipro has doubled since the beginning of April, she says. By mid-month, the city had taken in at least 60,000 refugees from the Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk provinces) alone, Mayor Borys Filatov told media. The consumption of water and electricity in the city has increased. “Not all refugees can stay here,” Cherkez says. “The city can’t handle that. They will have to move on.”

Talina Zjarikova (49) with her radiant blue eyes has no use for that. ‘Her’ 245 refugees, including 65 children, can stay as long as they want. On the left bank of the Dnipro, she has found a former chemical institute of more than a hundred years old to house refugees. The property stood empty; she signed an agreement with the owner.

She watches the children play from the entrance. “I just have to help people. That’s in me.” She started on her own, she says. Now neighbors and friends help with the reception of refugees from Mariupol, Kharkov and Bachmoet, among others. Restaurants in the city prepare food, handymen repair the broken windows. At the entrance there are more than ten children’s bicycles, donated by residents of Dnipro. “We can provide this help precisely because Dnipro is such a big city.”

Zjarikova is looking for a second property, because the demand for accommodation continues. “I get so many calls in one day with requests that I can’t answer them all.” She has her phone in her hand all the time.

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Closed hospitals

The Sborchik family – Roman (36) and Natalya (32) with their children Yulia (9), Vanya (6), Andrei (4) and Ira (1) – from Shevechenko, in the Donbas, have taken up residence in one of the rooms. Natalja and Ira have been staying there since March: Ira had to be treated for burns after getting hot water on her. But all the hospitals in the area were closed because of the war. So the two left for Dnipro. In early April, Natalya’s husband and the other three children joined them. The front approached Shevechenko. Shots were fired 20 kilometers away, says Roman. He didn’t want to spend the whole day in an air raid shelter with his three children.

They have to share the room with each other. On a table is an open notebook with Joelia’s homework, next to pieces of bread, used cups, a kettle, toilet paper and a can of pineapple.

One-year-old Ira steals the show by constantly smiling. Roman laughs heartily along with his daughter. The family is determined to stay in Dnipro. “We don’t want to constantly flee,” he says. “It is difficult with four children. And in Dnipro you don’t hear explosions. Here you will not notice military vehicles shaking the ground. You are safe in Dnipro.”

“We help where we can,” says volunteer Cherkez. “This is our life now. We cannot do otherwise.”

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of April 30, 2022