The medical centre helping Ukrainians with life-changing injuries | Ukraine: The Latest | Podcast

I'm David Knowles and this is Ukraine the latest today we analyze updates from the Battlefront bringing the latest news on the Russian ships snooping on Key Energy infrastructure and we interview Andrei stavnitzer founder of superhumans a new Ukrainian Medical Center that provides reconstruction Prosthetics and Rehabilitation for soldiers who have lost their limbs in the war bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory hideous and barbaric Venture of Vladimir Putin must end in faith we need a military strategy for Ukraine to gain a decisive advantage on the battlefield to win the war nobody is going to break us we're strong we're ukrainians every weekday afternoon we sit down with leading journalists from the telegraph London Newsroom and our teams reporting on the ground to bring you the latest news and analysis on the war in Ukraine it's Thursday the 20th of April one year and 55 days since the full-scale invasion began and today I'm joined by our associate editor Dominic Nichols Brussels correspondent Joe Barnes and founder of superhumans Andres stevnitzer I started by asking Dom for the latest news from Ukraine well hi David hi everybody hi Andre great to have you with us so NATO Secretary General Jen stoltenberg he's in Kiev today and the uh and the immediate vicinity's first visit to keep since the full scale Invasion he has been touring around he's been up to butcher the region or the the suburb really just to the north of Kiev which was the um the scene of so many of those atrocities that have so far been uncovered undoubtedly there will be others but butcher is the is in the uh the collective mind at the moment and he said NATO stands with you today tomorrow and for as long as it takes and then in a press conference well I'm sorry that probably came from the press conference but press conference with President zielinski he said NATO allies were just reminded the world that NATO allies have delivered more than 150 billion euros of support to Ukraine since the February Invasion last year and then very interestingly he said Ukraine's rightful place is in the Euro Atlantic family okay so far so good he then said Ukraine's rightful place is in NATO I mean absolutely unequivocal they've made these kind of statements before but but you know there's no no wiggle room there so he said Ukraine's rightful places in NATO and over time our support will help make this possible he underlined the multi-year support initiative from NATO to help Ukraine transition to Nato equipment and Doctrine and um and that interoperability with the alliance he said is a testament to NATO's long-term commitment to Ukraine which which I think it is as I said he visited butcher he also in in key if he later wreath at the the wall of remembrance that's the the wall of remembrance for the fallen and then he finished his visit by addressing the international Summit of communities and regions uh alongside president zielinski and then in his remarks there he he praised the the Reconstruction work and said your determination to fight the aggressor liberate your land and work for a brighter future says very clearly to me Ukraine will prevail so pretty strong words there from the Secretary General I've seen other reporting around the bazaars that he invited president zielinski to the next NATO Summit which is going to happen in in Vilnius in July that that though that date and or that invitation was not on the on the NATO site that I got the other information from so treat that with a little bit of caution but I mean it's the kind of thing that you would expect even if president zelinski didn't turn up in person you'd expect him to uh to go to the to to it in um as he has done to other Summits of course uh virtually so elsewhere what's happened there's been another wave of Air Attack From Russia across the country using drones using the Iranian Supply Shaheed 136 drones the Ukrainian general staff said it a shot down 21 of the 26 that were fired at the country and said there were casualties although no numbers were put on that and then a couple other bits and Bobs before I take a break Denmark and the Netherlands today have jointly pledged 14 more leopard two actually this is leopard 2a4 tanks one of the not the most recent variant but um but pretty Punchy another 14 leopard two tanks for you crane this came from the Danish foreign minister Lazlo Rasmussen and the acting defense minister trolls Lund Poulson so these tanks are going to be bought from elsewhere refurbished and then sent to Ukraine in order in quarter one next year so spring next year winter spring next year these these tanks are going to arrive now you could say well hey that's that's that's no good they need them now I mean there are there are others on the way German Spain Poland Finland and Portugal have all supplied or promised to supply Leopard 2 to Ukraine and in February Denmark Germany and the Netherlands said they would pull resources to restore around 100 old leopard one tanks from industry stocks and send them this year and of course you've also got the British Challengers and the US Abrams so tanks are going and this kind of commitment saying they'll be supplied in 2024. I mean the the this is notable I mean it doesn't they are saying you'll still be there we'll make sure that and we're going to support you in the long term and this is all part of those long-term security guarantees that we um that we need to see so Mr Paulson who's the acting Danish acting defense minister he said it is absolutely crucial for the hope of a peaceful and secure Europe that we do not let the Ukraine's fight the battle alone so yeah I mean good good statements as you as you would expect there's again no no wiggle room there a couple of other bits and pieces just quickly a sanctioned so Switzerland it's just been announced just broken Switzerland have sanctioned the Wagner group this uh follows on by from a similar move by by the EU last year so they said this is a quote from from the Swiss government the Wagner group is a russia-based military organization a serves as an instrument of Russian hybrid Warfare so this is a Swiss economy Minister and he set went on while its legal nature is unclear the Fargo group forms part of a complex network of global companies operating in a range of sectors including Aviation Security technology commodity trading Financial sectors and influencing activities which are linked through overlapping ownership structures and logistic networks so another typically exciting Swiss statement but good that they've sanctioned the the Wagner group it comes as Sergey lavrov Russia's foreign Ministries in Nicaragua trying to trying to drum up a bit of support there he was visiting president Daniel Ortega and he was bashing the West westerners under the auspices of such countries as the United States try to unite as exclusive countries try to proliferate their hegemony hegemony sorry in conflicts such as for example in Ukraine fine off you go Sergey he and uh in president Ortega downplayed the impact of U.S sanctions that have been levered against both countries in recent weeks lavrov said people who are under sanctions in Russia say that it is a recognition of their progress in the protection of Russia's rights fine to which I say hey Sergey those of us who have been sanctioned by you by Russia for reporting the Cowardly empathetic actions of your Armed Forces so that that is a recognition of our progress in pushing back against your warped vision for the world but yeah maybe I'm you know getting off my high horse a little bit there and just finally a report from The isw Institute for the study of War U.S based Think Tank reputable Think Tank they are a really interesting story actually do have a look at their website they're saying Russian police officers are being detained over alleged data leaks to Ukraine they're reporting tasks so the Russia State Control media they said tax reporters yesterday that for several weeks now the FSB so that's Russia's security service and the main directorate of the security service of the ministry of internal affairs the outfit known as the MVD have been conducting Mass checks at the Moscow Central District Internal Affairs directorate our as well as several Moscow District police officers and Tas is saying this was due to a leakage of data from the Russian Security Forces at the request of Ukrainian citizens Tas went on to say that the FSB appears to be conducting what they say is a large-scale overhaul of domestic security organs which sounds painful and another Russian Source said the FSB and the MVD have already detained police officers as part of this investigation so isw their in our analysis they're saying well they're citing versus Russian Outlets that have reported that suspected police officers have been leaking personal data on Russian Security Forces to external individuals including those in Ukraine and this is some Mass sort of security sweep up so we will continue to watch that one with with great interest I don't think I better take a pause there thank you very much Don before we come to Andre let's go to Joe Barnes our Brussels correspondent Joe you've got a couple of stories to us where would you like to start I just want to start on Jen stoltenberg in key because Dom said he wasn't clear whether an invite had been extended to Vladimir zielinski for the NATO Summit in July which is being held in Vilnius but I can tell you that my sources have told me it has been invited to that Summit as he was invited to the summit at me and Dom attended last year in Madrid at the time in Madrid he said look oh this is like he said look I can't come because I can't possibly leave my country at this time and that has been the sort of similar message that has been sent to Nato and it's its members if some member states its allies as we as we call them the head of the summit of illness so he made the overseas trip to the US to the UK to Paris and then to Brussels because it's 11k again at a time when the conflicts have kind of was really reached almost a grinding stalemate in Ukraine he he was comfortable enough to leave his people again use this not excuse It's a will he want to stay in the country in in Ukraine during the time when his armed forces are going to be carrying out what is believed to be a kind of a large-scale counter-offensive so that's one of the questions raised but he will definitely he will definitely tune in but yeah no soinski is at the very least we'll dial in but he's he's very appreciative of the government of Lithuania because they're one of that the polls in the Baltic states who have pledged a lot of assistance and basically been used by Ukraine to portray their message into the EU and NATO a lot of the time so I'm sure he'll be very keen to get over but then I'd like to go back because we have a few updates on the Russian ghost ships in the North Sea many of you might have seen it was on the front page of the telegraph this morning and we've got a few sort of added updates to that so if you weren't listening yesterday the this idea is there was a a group of Scandinavian broadcasters have done a quite extensive investigation and they discovered at least 50 of these Russian ghost ships being used to in surveillance operations in the North Sea to look at map critical infrastructure such as wind farms undersea cables and gas and electricity connectors with basically sabotage missions in mind if NATO and Russia whatever's going to war so after that kind of all emerged gchq Chiefs they warned of a surge of Russian aligned hackers aiming to disrupt or destroy energy facilities such as power stations so that again it adds to this idea that Russia as a Merlin actor in the world is not just using sort of conventional Warfare against Ukraine it's still looking at these hybrid ways of attacking Western assets so not just sort of these dodgy sabotage plots on wind farms they're also looking at using computers to hack into Power stations so we managed to get to buy at Elwood he's the Tory chairman of the House of Commons defense committee and he said look the penny has to drop on this so over Russia's constant attempts to undermine British security and he basically used that to call for an expansion of the Armed Forces uh and I would quote he said we simply can no longer protect our near seas and rightly step forward further afield with our current peacetime size Navy Army of Air Force so on Wednesday night gchq Chiefs warned that Western nations were battling a surge of Russian hacking activity Oliver dowelden the cabinet office Minister said Russian align hackers who have been attacking Ukraine have also turned their attentions to the UK and the criminal hacking groups in Russia were said to have increasingly begun targeting Western countries in recent months especially countries uh members of the NATO military Alliance and experts have said that these patriotic young Russians are carrying out cyber attacks against Western organizations and business basically in the name of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin the national cyber security Center have issued a formal warning to critical infrastructure operators about this renewed threat Lindsay Cameron its chief executive said if the UK is to be at the safest place to live and work online then Brazilians must urgently move to the top of our investment shopping list so what this goes on to kind of detail is yes look this kind of a great story about how Russia is using what we think are fishing vessels or research vessels to spy on our critical infrastructure is actually a lot wider is a it's it's it's it's not just these ships it's it's members of Russian Society who are in the country they won't be posing as diplomats in NATO countries I know the Netherlands had an incident where a Russian spy disguised as a Brazilian Diplomat was embedded in the international criminal courts and spying their um so look it's that's that's that's one of the the things that kind of the West is now becoming more aware to and like and it goes back to what happened in Salisbury with the uh Nova chalk poisonings of a former KGB officer and various other people eventually getting caught up Russia is sort of using these hybrid methods to attack Western countries and well Britain might have been quite awake to it actually now a whole lot more are becoming conscious of it and then I will offer a few updates because I've slightly alluded to a letter sent by Ursula vandelayan to the five eastern European countries that were concerned about Ukrainian grain shipments into the EU and I had only just received the letter as we kind of went live so I didn't have a chance to really pour through it and so ursulin in this letter to the leaves of Poland hungry Romania Slovakia Bulgaria set out a few proposals she offered a 100 million euros in financial aid basically to support farmers who feel they're being hard done by when shipments of cheap Ukrainian grains are undermining their own efforts and in the letter she said this responds specifically to the concerns of Frontline member states and stakeholders including farmers and will allow us to react even quicker in the future but she also um sort of set out these ideas that there could be some sort of technical measures to keep the concerns of the farmers from basically developing into a fully fledged core geopolitical crisis where there's protests in Brussels or protests at home and that they haven't been outlined yet but what she has warned is look this isn't the moment for us to come out and act like we are divided when Russia is seeking to do that itself proactively we we have to stand behind the ukrainians we will we will stand behind their own Farmers but also we will stand behind the ukraines but I think also now what this is exposed is a potential weakness in the application by Ukraine to join the European Union um Kiev is being fast tracked into the EU there's no it's it's from applicant status to invite e to potential prospective member for a country was unprecedented it's it's they've not officially opened negotiations on a session yet but we expect that to happen by the end of the year but the fact that some of kiev's biggest allies such as Poland in the EU have complained about Ukrainian standards they there's been excuses used like they are using fertilizers and methods or ban in the EU which is helps them become overly competitive we know the reason for the EU is it's vast single Market which covers its 27 members and they all align to the same standards and the same rules and regulations when it comes to farming other agricultural policies manufacturing and stuff even when it comes to like Mining and producing energy and this sort of exposes that while Ukraine has tariff and quota free access and du's Market it isn't applying the standards so now countries that are previously allies sort of suggesting whoa hang on a minute we need to get Ukraine up to scratch if we are going to actually proceed with these membership talks and and throws a bit of a spanner in the works but I'm sure politicians in key those I've spoken to are still pretty adamant but they can get to a point where they start a session Talks by the end of the year despite this crisis so hopefully that doesn't derail them too much and I'll I'll stop there for now well thank you very much Dom Nichols and Joe Barnes for your updates there um would love to come now to Our Guest Andre Stevenson Andre thank you so much for your time and we introduced you as the founder of superhumans Ukrainian Medical Center that will provide a Prosthetics reconstruction and Rehabilitation before we talk about that though could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your life before the start of the full scale invasion well thank you good evening it's I don't to be honest I don't really remember my life before this this year has been so so much life-changing and it's like everything before it was really blurry but I was a I was a businessman entrepreneur I was running family business and a few other projects and my family business is a port a harbor basically the largest private port in Ukraine and probably second or third largest on the Black Sea and we were handling all kinds of stuff like containers steel fertilizers and a lot of grain as well because we have a joint venture with Cargill so if I may command slightly on the on the previous subject regarding Ukrainian grain I would say that the European band is not going to be dramatic for Ukrainian Farmers it's great that you know we'll have a support for European Farmers but to be honest Ukrainian grain was never a big scale shipped to to European destinations it was mainly Asia and the Middle East but anyway we should we should continue shipping grain and as you know Russia is doing everything they can to sabotage the grain shipments the commission that Russia is running in Bosphorus is basically sabotaging every vessel that goes out of Ukraine should be inspected and this inspection takes more than a month right now so an average average waiting time for a vessel with grain that is being inspected in Turkey is a month and that makes us less competitive on global markets which brought us to a point where Russia has exported twice as much grain as Ukraine than Ukraine um this is basically the opposite what what the reality was before the war so Ukraine would export double double the volume unfortunately this is not the case and you know they're they're inspecting vessels full of grain for for weapons being exported out of Ukraine it makes no sense and then Russian vessels are just passing by without any any stops or any delays that's really interesting Andre thanks for that extra context there can you tell us I mean you mentioned that life before The full-scale Invasion just feels like a blur so talk to us about what happened to you in the early months of the war well uh when the war started my family business got closed immediately because the sea was closed but even if it wouldn't I couldn't get my head around business at all and I and I still can't I'm I'm totally doing doing humanitarian stuff one of the biggest actions that we started was a healthy crane Center where we opened a number of warehouses where people from all over the world could deliver help like food medication clothes Etc and then we would take it with our trucks and our trains all the way to the front line and make sure it would get to the most vulnerable part of of the population and it was working perfectly for several months and we did thousands and thousands of trucks hundreds of volunteers were working with us and it was it was a relief for them because the only way how you can decrease amount of pain that that you feel is really by working as much as you can and these people from a waiter to I don't know wives of the Ukrainian top business people were coming to the warehouses and working day and night just to volume down their pain a little bit so what happened next is we realized that this business this project is not a business but this project is running smoothly and we needed to to start looking ahead of the curve and thinking ahead of the curve so we realized that as in many countries where the war happens the next big thing unfortunately is going to be people without limbs so civilians and Military who have lost their limbs reconstruction surgeries because obviously government of Ukraine doesn't have enough time and resources to to take care of this the government only stabilizes people make sure you know the soldier or the civilian is alive and doesn't really care about the aesthetic part of it with their face or their body or their limbs and the third part is PTSD which is going to be probably the biggest subject for for the Ukraine but I'll I'll touch upon this on PTSD a bit early if you don't mind of course of course so talk to us about superhumans where did the project come from what what are you doing right now and um what and talk a little bit more about why it's needed in in the Here and Now absolutely so there at the moment the the casualties of this horrible War are classified but according to our estimations there are more than 12 000 people already who are ex waiting for Prosthetics who have lost one of their limbs and still do not have a Prosthetics and the reason for that is because a lot of amputations are being done on the front line or close to the front line in cities like nipro or harkith and since bakmut is really intense right now the amount of patience is horrible and the the amputations are done poorly so almost every third amputation has to be redone either because it's a dirty amputation or because there is an infection or because there is not enough fat or this car is on the wrong side and then you cannot put Prosthetics on it so a lot of these people who have suffered a lot they need to have their limbs re-amputated and our goal is to first of all to teach doctors closer to the front line how to how to make proper reputations and secondly to install free of charge um the best Prosthetics there are for their hands and their legs so the project is packed by the first lady of Ukraine Madame zelenska she is on the board minister of health is on the board we have Sir Richard Branson supporting us he was he was visiting us last week in fact on his way to to see President zielinski we have sting and Trudy Styler who are supporting us as well and we are basically fundraising for Prosthetics so we're in the next couple of weeks we're launching a special internet online shop where anyone can buy a lag or an arm for a Ukrainian hero it doesn't matter civilian or or military we don't distinguish between them we have kids we have women we have men everyone and we expect to make about to have about 3 000 patients per year and we are installing prosthetics for them the leg Prosthetics are coming from Germany they're called Autobook the bionic arms which I'm really really proud of are coming from the UK the company is called open bionics and um it's been unbelievably rewarding to see our first patients you know wearing these scents because it's very intuitive to teach this hand to to operate and when you see a person who's been without an arm for month and months finally getting a bionic arm you know he or she starts running around the room grabbing a bottle of water or or a headset or or a charger and then operating a bionic arm for the first time in month this is totally unbelievable feeling it gives you so much energy and so much motivation to continue and a lot of our patients have extremely High Spirits so every time I talk to them I have a a huge resource of energy for months and months of restless Andre could you tell us a little bit more about some of the people you've been helping what what are their stories well I have a few maybe I'll start with with a 19 year old ruslana and she's coming from the same city as I Odessa and she has volunteered almost at the beginning of the conflict to be a medic she was 18 back then and she decided to go for this because both of her parents were actually from the military so she started to participate and unfortunately he was heavily wounded next to the city of Carson but lucky enough that the ambulance was driving nearby and she was evacuated she has undergone five or six surgeries and a couple of days ago we installed her our lag and now she's on a photo from the opening she's walking next to the to Madame zelenska and she's super happy and she's probably staying to work with us and we try to we try to find jobs for our patients firstly within superhuman Center and one of our one of the guys I'm most proudly of is a triple amputee who is now joining us as a psychologist of the first of the first Contact um maybe another person I can tell you about is a 24 year old Dennis who was badly badly injured in bakmud and he had to be carried by his by his fellow servicemen about two kilometers for evacuation because the amount of doctors and medivac is definitely not enough so he's been carried for two kilometers he's been singing Ukrainian Anthem and saying goodbye to his to his friends but eventually he got he got evacuated he got stabilized and he got a beautiful Prosthetics from us so now he's going to be a psychologist he's going to go with the psychological um education he's going to join the university Mr Howard Buffett has agreed to pay his um his education and the guy is super happy because this this was his dream I have a number of stories like this but and I'll try to make a video out of it so that I can send it to you a lot of stories like this finish with them with this with a strange phrase a lot of these people want to go back to the front line because they have this this sense of enormous debt towards their their their brothers and sisters in the in the Army because mainly they were evacuated by by their friends not by the Medicals by the medics and the only way how they can repay is really to go back and fight next to them in some in some areas it is not possible but this because I mean the the for example the condition of their health is not good enough but they still they still go there despite the despite that the commander is not allowing them and they do whatever they watch floors or they Supply food whatever but they want to be they want to repay this somehow about 80 percent of the of the military people that are our clients all of them want to go back Andre can I ask just to turn the question around actually could you tell us a little bit about the people that work with you at superhumans what are their backgrounds and and why did they get involved well this project has been a magnet the CEO of the project is she's been in charity for 18 years she's been an anti-aid in Ukraine and then she read my Facebook post and she decided to join and she's super happy and super energetic she says this is the most important thing she's done in her life or she's doing in her life I I couldn't agree more to be quite honest our medical director is a very famous doctor from um from the Ukraine he was the head of NHS in Ukraine and before that he was running a chain of private hospitals we have um Melinda Herring who was the deputy head of Atlantic Council deputy director in she's our she's the head of our U.S operations we have Anastasia Juke and she's been in a marketing and PR so she's running same thing here basically we have Philip grusco who is um Express Waterhouse employee who is taking care of the financials and the fundraising and and myself and about 80 more super talented people who are running the show in leave be it rehabilitologist doctors of all kinds uh psychologists you name it the Center opened last week could you tell us a little bit about that day what did it mean for you and what are your plans now over the next year how do you expand and do more all right um so yeah the center was open we had a very various guests a lot of ambassadors minister of health of France the first lady obviously Mr Buffett and many many more the the center is is running right now and we are expanding so we are opening five more similar centers across Ukraine much closer to the front line in order to to get the patients from there we understand that the need is much much worse than than what we can cover at the moment so we are we're going to be continuing to fundraise for Prosthetics and we are we're building right now the the department for reconstruction surgeries because a lot of people are they need they need to fix their faces their their limbs their body and there is not so much expertise about it so what I'm doing right now is I'm traveling around the world and trying to get the best doctors there are currently I'm in Tokyo talking to reconstruction surgeons here and getting them to work in the Ukraine on a tour basis so that they can come teach local doctors and leave and then maybe come again after a couple of months like a tour schedule training because the biggest part of our Center is educational part we want to bring the expertise into Ukraine that does not exist we succeeded already with prosthetics it's running and we have the best rehabilitologist and protestist there are so now we're working on surgeons who can do reconstructive surgery and obviously fundraising too you mentioned earlier PTSD um and you've spoken a lot about Prosthetics and Rehabilitation would you like to talk a little bit more about about PTSD and what you see oh this is probably the biggest subject and to be quite honest we we haven't touched too much upon it so we have one and a half million people in combat right now this is unprecedented so for the Soviet Union back at this time there were 600 000 people fighting over the period of 11 years and the the aftermatch of Afghanistan for every person who lived in the Soviet Union and all of them know that it was really dramatic these guys came back from Afghanistan they were severely traumatized they became the core they were very brave people very professional but the Soviet Union basically broke down and these people were left alone meaning they would join the mafia and for the next decade probably from 1991 till early 2000s these people were the core of Russia Ukraine Kazakhstan whatever Soviet Union Mafia so in order for this not to happen we have to make sure that we have a national program developed how to treat PTSD and PTSD obviously is not only for military people it's a lot about civilians so I estimate we have millions of people who already have PTSD but don't know about it we have to make sure we diagnose them we have to make sure we treat them otherwise it's going to be a very difficult time after the war and now since for recent studies show an incredible thing it says if the PTSD is not treated your your children can inherit it so it's genetically transformed transferred and I don't know if I need to speak about the the consequences of untreated PTSD but that's suicide is the least is the least bad thing that can happen it's increase in domestic violence in in car accidents in work accidents it's basically it's a very heavy thing so this will be the next big thing for us as soon as we're done with the Reconstruction surgeries thanks Andre Tom and Joe I know you've got some questions as well shall I go to Joe Barnes first yeah so I'll start on the PTSD issue because when I was when I was last out in Ukraine I visited a fair amount of hospitals as I wrote about how Ukraine's Healthcare System was ramped up to deal with the number of casualties but civilian and militarily and I I kept on asking the question about PTSD and whether there was a system capable of handling it because like it eventually will turn out into a sort of new crisis in Ukraine as it did in the UK and the Us and other NATO countries that were involved in Afghanistan and Iraq and various other Wars there so I was just wondering do you see that experience there already to deal with that potential crisis or do you think actually that's one area where Western governments could step up their sort of level of assistance for Ukraine because um that's one one area where they have experience and they can send experts to help train your what like their training Ukrainian soldiers they could train Ukrainian Medics and psychologists to help alleviate that problem it's wondering what your opinion on that is since you're working on it so closely it's a great question thank you so much so it is happening already we've visited your minister of healthcare Minister Barclay and we had a very constructive meeting with people from NHS and from the military so we're getting consultancy to create our own protocols however with PTSD unlike unlike the Prosthetics and the reconstructions we're kind of all the same on the inside but not in the brain because the PTSD has a cultural and and geographical peculiarities that need to be addressed by local Specialists so what we're doing is basically we're trying to get the most Progressive and the most proven protocols and then adapted in Ukraine to to the local mentality to local culture and local people and this is already happening because um we need we need to address it in in multiple layers so it's it's a different thing for for a military man it's a different thing for civilian it's a totally different thing for a child and anyone who has had a rocket flying over them is already subject to PTSD so I would say if we want a peaceful balanced country and people to rebuild it we need to start addressing it now and I wouldn't refuse any help in that concern I think this is probably one of the most important things you know we can rebuild any infrastructure any Bridges or Railways but if we don't have the people if the people are not rebuilt physically and mentally all of all of the all of the assets all the infrastructure doesn't make any sense it's just not going to work so we have to start from the people we have to rebuild the ukrainians and they will rebuild their country yeah that's that's really fascinating and then one more question um which is probably slightly more wider is I want to stick into the entrepreneurial ship entrepreneurial ship that ukrainians have shown as as you when you were introducing yourself you're a regular businessman and you've swapped you've swapped to now helping like militarily and humanitarily there was a great story uh that channel 4 did in the UK the other day about a Ukrainian who'd lived in Britain for a number of years who had turned to basically fund companies in the UK who provide armored vehicles and tanks normally to film companies in the production of kind of war movies and uh TV programs and they're like but was then getting them and buying them and then shipping them to Ukraine so I'm just wondering is it something about just ukrainians and their ability to sort of adapt and what are the methods of fighting adversity is just being able to show a real entrepreneurial Spirit or is it is it something that you've all had to learn the hard way in a very short amount of time another great question but uh I have no answer for you unfortunately this is my first and hopefully last war so I I there is nothing I can how I can compare it and I would I have my strong belief that God forbid you would be in my place you would be that you would be doing the same if not more so I think ukrainians are super Brave not only the military but also the the business and the Civil Society because I see how many efforts everybody is is applying towards our Victory but probably this is because we have no choice we're fighting on our land and for our land so I think you'll do the same Andre hi it's Dom here thanks so much for for joining us today and for for sharing your experiences and your and your vision and I guess it must be really late in Tokyo right now so so thanks thanks so much for that the British experience in recent conflicts Iraq Afghanistan I'm thinking in particular is that many of the traumatic amputations that happened were lower limb because of the IED threat the improvised explosive device threat and I I wonder if if you're seeing a similar proportion of lower limb to arm injuries I think it's probably more equal I would imagine in the kind of conventional conflict but I just wonder our experience was that was that with advances in medical science many people who would have died in earlier conflicts maybe even just 20 or 30 years ago those that would have died were living but that then put a huge strain on the rest of the medical infrastructure I just wonder are you seeing that kind of are you having that experience in Ukraine are you seeing people who who would otherwise might have died or 20 years ago but who now are kind of stuck in the bottleneck looking for looking for to access those other services oh well I would say that a lot of the amputations that we have now are are from the artillery uh shots so there is no particular area like if you would have in a close combat where you have your your arm on the on the machine gun and then this arm is the one that has the most vulnerable is the most vulnerable area of your of your body and then it's mainly shot no it's it can be any part of the body right now plus all these dirty imitations meaning you can have a wrist uh damaged wrist but then after eight amputations and I know a person with 12 amputations or re-amputations you would get all the way to the shoulder so it's the statistics is not very it's not very clear but also it's classified so we cannot make a proper a proper judgment here also on on you know what is happening right now in Ukraine is the hardest conflict on Earth therefore the the the the the the people that receive prosthetics are youngsters unlike unlike what the world has seen for many years so we have to make sure that the Prosthetics that we make are going to serve them for the next 50 60 years maybe more whereas if you if you look at amputations in U.S and UK most of these amputations are diabetes driven and and there for people you know 60 plus meaning 10 or 20 years left to to to use it so it's a totally different story and and every doctor I talk to I invite them to to come to Ukraine to come to leave which is considered the safest part and to join to bring trainees because I mean we learned the hard way but we should also make the most use of it and we should we should make sure that doctors from other countries are learning by by watching what is happening by helping us but also training unfortunately so the Ukrainian conflict is quite quite different to to what has been in in Afghanistan for example yeah so I've no no doubt I visited a number of service Personnel who had traumatic amputation and and required Prosthetics I had some friends as well and actually the um the spirit amongst them was was hugely impressive and and humbling I think you touched on this a bit earlier and I just want to one of the things that I kept hearing time and time again was how they were looking to the Future these are British service Personnel look into the future and saying things like I'm going to join the team GB paralympic Squad I'm going to get into the Invictus games that that kind of thing are you seeing the same thing are you are you hearing Ukrainian service Personnel already looking to what what they're going to do now and as as anyone from the Invictus games approached you at all no I I hope it's going to happen and if I if I would be on the organizing committee I would say that the next Invictus game after the war uh should be should be in Ukraine however the most of our patients have one dream they want to go back to the front line and if we install a you know top-notch bionic arm for them and we tell them okay this is going to work like this and like that but I mean it's not a good idea to take it to the front line it's dirty you need to charge it it's messy it's wet Etc and they say look I don't care as long as I can do one movement with my index finger it's it works for me so 80 maybe even more maybe on the 80s speak about it but 80 definitely want to go back to the front line and and you know make everything possible to to bring it all to the end well thank you Dom and Joe for your questions Andre is there anything we haven't spoken about that you think is important for our listeners to to hear I think it's important to to keep the war on the Raiders uh human being is an extremely adaptable person and the war in Ukraine starts moving down on the global agenda and in UK is probably is probably no exception so I just want to stress once again that you know we cannot win this war without you and it's extremely important that you guys you know keep supporting us we are very thankful and you know Ukraine Ukraine and Ukrainian people deserve to be helped so I just hope we can bring it all to an end soonest that's that's my bottom line well Andre thank you so much for your time it's been really moving and and fascinating to hear from you I'll just go to Dom and Joe's final thoughts to close this episode and then Andre if you have a final thought after that you'd be more than welcome to share so I'll go to uh Joe or Dom first so yeah I just want to say you're saying that entree kind of said um and it is the fact that kind of um none of us are having to live this and he said uh like God God willing it doesn't happen to you and I I just can't you have to wholeheartedly agree with that statement we we are incredibly lucky that we will likely never go through anything like this or definitely a a ground war in Britain again so yeah it's the same I can never put my finger on about and how we can really fathom what is going on in Ukraine and it's it's increasingly thought of it's there are lots of incredible stories and lots of incredible things happening but maybe sometimes we do underestimate the human toll of the war on children on on just regular regular people and business people whether it be families or when we're reporting kind of the stories about great feats of military expertise shown by the Ukrainian Armed Forces sometimes we do forget about the everyday person in Ukraine at times and yeah hopefully we can carry on reporting that and trying to push that agenda to show that people are being affected by this conflict and that is one of the great reasons that apart from kind of territorial Serenity is that we we are basically doing this to help innocent and regular people everyday people on the streets yeah that's just kind of what I'd say though thank you very much Joe Nichols thanks I'll just finish by I'm saying thanks to Michelle who's whose message literally in the last couple of minutes listening to this who has uh has directed me to a page I'll retweet it that there is already a movement supporting a Ukrainian service Personnel in their bid to to participate in the Invictus game so I will retweet that and we will follow that up and and hopefully that can become a thing but um Andre thank you so much for your for your time and uh and yeah we'll continue to make those links and best of luck in Tokyo thank you Dom and Joe Andre 7 surf would you like as our guest the very final words no I think I I said it all I I would like to thank thank you once again for covering as much as you do on Ukraine and Ukraine will prevail I have no doubt about it Ukraine the latest is an original podcast from the telegraph to stay on top of all of our Ukraine news analysis and dispatches from the ground subscribe to the telegraph you can get your first three months for just one pound at www dot telegraph.co.uk forward slash Ukraine the latest or sign up to dispatches our Ukraine newsletter which brings stories from our award-winning foreign correspondence straight to your inbox we also have a Ukraine live block on our website where you can follow updates as they come in throughout the day including insights from regular contributors to this podcast you can listen to this conversation live at 1pm each weekday on Twitter spaces follow the telegraph on Twitter so you don't miss it to our listeners on YouTube please note that due to issues beyond our control there is sometimes a delay between broadcast and upload so if you want to hear Ukraine the latest as soon as it is released do refer to podcast apps if you enjoyed this podcast please consider following Ukraine the latest on your preferred podcast app and if you have a moment leave a review as it helps others find the show you can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing Ukraine POD at telegraph.co.uk we do read every message and you can contact us directly on Twitter you can find our Twitter Handles in the description for this episode Ukraine the latest is produced by Louisa Wells and Giles gear and today on Twitter Gemma Farrell [Music]

Channel: The Telegraph

Views: 29,372

Keywords: Telegraph, News, Telegraph Telegraph news, The Telegraph, Russia, Ukraine, Invasion, war, russia ukraine war, russia ukraine invasion, kyiv, nato, telegraph news, politics, kherson, russian control, defence, military, troops, russia-ukraine war, zelenskiy, zelensky, moscow, kremlin, ukrainian people, vladimir putin, putin, world news, world, Ukrainian forces, russia forces, Ukrainian troops, volodymyr zelenskiy, sanctions, drones, Biden, donbas, mariupol, HIMARs, Brussels, Moldova, Belarus

Id: Srzvb1X2Gvo

Length: 48min 38sec (2918 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023