22 January, 2024
A Ukrainian man from the Luhansk region – conscripted to fight for Russian-backed separatist forces, which then merged with the Russian army – lies injured in a field hospital set up in an underground winery near Bakhmut. His left leg and arm were later amputated. Donbas, Ukraine.
A Ukrainian man from the Luhansk region – conscripted to fight for Russian-backed separatist forces, which then merged with the Russian army – lies injured in a field hospital set up in an underground winery near Bakhmut. His left leg and arm were later amputated. Donbas, Ukraine.
The man was conscripted to fight for the Russian-backed, separatist “republic” of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine on 22 February 2022, two days before the full-scale Russian invasion of the country. He was one among thousands of men similarly mobilized. Later, Russia unilaterally annexed the territory, and the militia that conscripted him was integrated into a unit of the Russian army. Russia has occupied vast swathes of eastern Ukraine, and the city of Bakhmut has seen some of the bloodiest battles of the war.
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