{"id":1978,"date":"2025-07-30T08:45:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T08:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/30\/they-chase-ambulances-russias-record-attacks-on-ukraines-healthcare\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T08:45:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T08:45:40","slug":"they-chase-ambulances-russias-record-attacks-on-ukraines-healthcare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/07\/30\/they-chase-ambulances-russias-record-attacks-on-ukraines-healthcare\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They chase ambulances:\u2019 Russia\u2019s \u2018record\u2019 attacks on Ukraine\u2019s healthcare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013<\/strong> As luck would have it, emergency doctor Elina Dovzhenko was far enough from her vehicle when a Russian drone struck it, breaking the windshield and splattering pieces of shrapnel around.<\/p>\n

It was getting dark on July 9 in the bombed-out, nearly-abandoned city of Kupiansk which sits less than 5km (3 miles) from the front line in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv \u2013 and just 40km (25 miles) west of the Russian border.<\/p>\n

But there was definitely enough light left for the Russian drone operator on the front line\u2019s opposite side to see that Dovzhenko\u2019s vehicle was a white ambulance with red stripes parked near a shelling-damaged hospital where she and her colleagues were.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard the drone move, it swirled and swirled around [the building], then we heard the blast,\u201d Dovzhenko, 29, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

She and her colleagues were shocked and angry \u2013 but not surprised. They have been hearing regularly about Russian drones targeting ambulances, rescue workers and the people they were rescuing, mostly the elderly who refused to leave their homes, pets, kitchen gardens and family graves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey chase ambulances every other day. They definitely targeted us,\u201d Denys Raievskyi, a 30-year-old paramedic and Dovzhenko\u2019s ambulance partner, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Their job is among the most dangerous professions in wartime Ukraine \u2013 some 200 ambulances have been damaged or destroyed by Russian shelling attacks each year since the full-scale invasion began in 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmbulance workers and other personnel servicing health transport face a risk of injury and death three times higher than that of other healthcare service workers,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Premeditated, systematic attacks on ambulances are part of the Kremlin\u2019s wider strategy to destroy Ukraine\u2019s medical facilities<\/a> and deprive millions of access to healthcare exacerbating their stress as well as physical and mental health problems.<\/p>\n

Some 68 percent of Ukrainians already report a decline in their health compared with the pre-war period, the WHO said, and 46 percent are concerned about their mental health.<\/p>\n

The WHO did not specify the number of casualties among ambulance workers, but said that since 2022 it has verified 1,682 attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in Ukraine that have resulted in 128 deaths and 288 injuries of health professionals and their patients.<\/p>\n

\"Ambulance\"
The ambulance damaged by a Russian drone in Kupiansk, Ukraine\u2019s Kharkiv region, on July 9 [Project Hope\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Children in the line of fire<\/h2>\n

In an earlier assessment last August, it said the number of attacks was \u201cthe highest number WHO has ever recorded in any humanitarian emergency globally\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese attacks are a deliberate crime against humanity aimed at destroying civilians and those who stand on the front line fighting for [their] lives,\u201d Ukraine\u2019s Health Ministry said in July 2024.<\/p>\n

The statement followed last year\u2019s July 8 strike<\/a> that killed two hospital workers, wounded eight children and injured hundreds in Okhmatdyd, Ukraine\u2019s largest children\u2019s hospital in Kyiv.<\/p>\n

Russia used an X-101 missile that flies low to avoid detection and air defence, manoeuvres mid-flight and hits its target with a 10-metre (33ft) accuracy even if launched from 5,500km (3,420 miles) away.<\/p>\n

Moscow routinely denies responsibility for deliberate attacks on healthcare, claiming it only strikes military sites and personnel.<\/p>\n

International relief groups say they are aware of the gravity of the situation and are ready to keep supporting Ukraine\u2019s healthcare.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, these types of situation are not new,\u201d Giorgio Trombatore, regional director for Eastern Europe with Project Hope, an international humanitarian group, told Al Jazeera. \u201cBut we are resilient, we\u2019re going to continue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group maintains 13 ambulances in four Ukrainian regions, five of them in Kharkiv \u2013 including the one struck by the drone in Kupiansk.<\/p>\n

Other ambulances have also encountered drones<\/a> in recent months, but the teams were not hurt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something you cannot escape; eventually you need to be prepared,\u201d Trombatore said. \u201cLuckily, we didn\u2019t report casualties from our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

His group also provides helmets and flak jackets, and some of the ambulances are bulletproof \u2013 something that helps counter Russia\u2019s tactic of repeated strikes.<\/p>\n

In one case, a Russian drone attack killed a civilian and wounded another in the village of Stetsivka in the northern region of Sumy on July 14.<\/p>\n

After the ambulance team, supported by Project HOPE, arrived, a second drone exploded 2 metres (7ft) away from the vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat saved them is that the vehicle was bulletproof,\u201d Project HOPE\u2019s spokesman Artem Murach told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\"Ukraine
A view of the damage to Okhmatdyt children\u2019s hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, September 14, 2024. The hospital was destroyed during a Russian missile strike on July 8 [Anton Shtuka\/AP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Hope and faith\u2019<\/h2>\n

The city of Kupiansk straddles both banks of the slow and strategically-located Oskil river, and once boasted a dozen factories, several colleges and a population of 22,000.<\/p>\n

But days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, the mayor surrendered the town and it became the de facto administrative centre of the Moscow-occupied chunk of the Kharkiv region.<\/p>\n

The Russians were kicked out six months later during a daring Ukrainian counter-offensive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the town remained within reach of Russian artillery, drones and missiles, which have killed dozens of civilians, wounded hundreds and damaged almost every building.<\/p>\n

Most of the residents \u2013 along with police officers, fire brigades and government officials \u2013 fled Kupiansk<\/a> in early 2023 when Russian forces began approaching again.<\/p>\n

But about 1,200 people \u2013 or about 7 percent of the pre-war population \u2013 remained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re scared to leave, they have no relatives to host them, they say, \u2018I\u2019d better die here, because it\u2019s home,\u2019\u201d paramedic Raievskyi said.<\/p>\n

He is no stranger to Russian pummelling \u2013 he lives with his wife in Saltivka, the most shelling-damaged region of Kharkiv, Ukraine\u2019s second-largest city some 120km (75 miles) east of Kupiansk.<\/p>\n

Raievskyi\u2019s ambulance travels up to 1.5 hours to help the sick and the wounded, despite the almost constant shelling and omnipresent drones.<\/p>\n

But no matter how severe their wounds are, he and his colleagues can\u2019t treat their patients on the spot, especially if they have been hurt by a drone, because another strike is always a possibility.<\/p>\n

One life-saving solution \u2013 a portable electronic jamming system that scrambles the drones\u2019 navigation systems \u2013 no longer works in the Kharkiv region because Russians attach kilometres-long fibre-optic cables to their loitering munitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, in Kupiansk all the Russian drones are fibre-optic,\u201d his partner Dovzhenko said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013 As luck would have it, emergency doctor Elina Dovzhenko was far enough from her vehicle when a Russian drone struck it, breaking the windshield and splattering pieces of shrapnel around. It was getting dark on July 9 in the bombed-out, nearly-abandoned city of Kupiansk which sits less than 5km (3 miles) from … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}