Donetsk Bereft of Prosthetists Because They Were All Mobilized for the Trenches 10 Months Ago
While Putin made 200K trained Russian conscripts non-deployable, Donetsk was made to mobilize even its prosthetists to make up for it
Earlier this month Putin held a meeting with his Human Rights Soviet. During the meeting one of the members thanked him for demobilizing Donetsk students and asked him if he could pretty please demobilize one more group of Donetsk citizens — its prosthetists. Here’s the transcript from the Kremlin website:
And now I am authorized by people to ask you about the demobilization of other people - these are prosthetists. There were many good prosthetists in the Donetsk Orthopedic Center, but in March almost everyone was mobilized, that is, everyone - only one remained, and he is now working day and night. A queue lined up for him, a huge queue of civilians and military men.
We know that the republics of Ukraine are regularly sprinkled with petal mines: people, children step on these mines, die, lose limbs, they need prostheses. But there is only one specialist, and besides, components from Germany take too long, and we have problems with our own, unfortunately.
Plus the military. The military is, perhaps, even the main topic, because on the front line I constantly met people with artificial limbs. They are ready to return to the front if they have prosthetics, and they certainly believe that they will bring victory, because they have experience and they have spirit. Now their stumps have already healed, but there are no prostheses.
And recently one of the prosthetists came on leave, he went to the orthopedic center in Donetsk and said that when his comrades-in-arms found out that he was a prosthetist, they yelled at him: what are you doing here, you are much more important to us in the rear. And this is so, because you cannot bring up a normal prosthetist in one year.
Before meeting with you, I even visited our military hospitals - these are Burdenko and Vishnevsky [in Moscow], to see how their rehabilitation process is going. What can I say: this, of course, is close to ideal, although there are some hitches with prosthetics. But, for example, in Donetsk there is not even a walking rehabilitation specialist, because he is also mobilized. [Aka, Moscow hospitals are “close to ideal” while the Donetsk hospital doesn’t even have a walking rehabilation specialist because he was mobilized 10 months ago.]
It is necessary to return the prosthetists - both civilians and the military are asking for this. And probably think about doing something so that we have our own components - components for creating prostheses.
Yes, in February every last single prosthetist in Donetsk’s main orthopedic institute was mobilized, except one. And they also mobilized the walking rehabilitation specialist, and in early December, nearly 10 months later they were all still at the front.
Huge lines of limbless people waiting for the one remaining prosthetists because all the rest were rounded up for the war… this would be comical if it wasn’t tragic, and criminal.
It’s incredible what a rotten deal Donetsk got from the Kremlin. At the same time as Putin made the already serving Russian conscript soldiers illegible for the war (and created a manpower crisis), Donetsk was made to mobilize even its prosthetist.
On the one hand, infantry units were being thrown together from sailors and missile troops, from convicts, and from Donetsk prosthetists and electricians. On the other, 150-200 thousand trained land combat troops were made non-deployable because Putin wanted to pretend SMO was peacetime.