Ukrainian healthcare providers learn to treat injuries from nerve poison
– The worst is when they get fluid in the lungs. The soldiers happen to panic, because they know they can be suffocated by it.
A year ago, in the spring of 2024, the 26-year-old Ukrainian healthcare provider Ruslana received patients from the front with very strange symptoms. The soldiers tipped after breath. They had runny eyes and swollen mucous membranes.
– Those who had to wait a long time for transport developed acute swelling in the neck and face. The airways were blocked.
The cause were of everything Judging chemical warfare. Russia has probably tested this a few times in Ukraine. In May 2024, the United States introduced new sanctions against Russia, after the Russian army was accused of using chloropicry against Ukrainian soldiers. It is a combat gas used during the First World War and causes strong nausea and suffocation. Chloropicry is prohibited, according to the Geneva Convention.
Ruslana doesn’t know if it was precisely the chloropicry used against the soldiers she has cared for.
– We could only write « poisoned by unknown gas » in the protocol.
Now Germans drill The Army Ukrainian field nurse in how to save these soldiers. Ruslana and some twenty Ukrainian healthcare providers have been flown to Bavaria to undergo an intensive course. They also learn how to save lives on patients who have been exposed to the nerve gas Sarin, the nerve poison Novitjok and several other chemical weapons.
The characteristic of chemical weapons is that they kill or damage by poisoning, indiscriminate. For this reason, they are classified as weapons of mass destruction. Chemical weapons are prohibited by the CHECK ACVENTION CWC (1997), which both Russia and Ukraine have signed.
German Army has bet Hard to train Ukrainian soldiers ever since the Russian major attack in 2022. To date, the EU’s special military mission for Ukraine (Eumam UA) has trained about 76,000 Ukrainian soldiers in various military disciplines. Over a quarter of them have been trained in Germany. They learn, among other things, how to use Patriot air defense and how to run the German-made tank Leopard and the armored car Marder.
It is at Ukraine’s own request that Germany also educates healthcare providers.
Ruslana has had several cases of soldiers with symptoms suggesting chemical warfare. She says it usually goes in the same way: Ukrainian soldiers hold a shooting guard that the Russian army shoots. When the Russian troops fail to get the Ukrainians to leave the guard with the help of artillery, they send over drones, which drop packs with battle gases.
– The Ukrainian soldiers then have the choice to stay in the shelter and suffocate, or leave it and be shot, says Ruslana.
Now she intends to do All of the opportunity to learn more about how the patients are cared for.
– The Germans are among the best in the world in the area, says Ruslana.
For security reasons, we must not print her or others interviewed surname. We must also not show their faces.
Then DN visits The German Army Construction in Bavaria conducts the Ukrainian team two exercises per day. On a lawn, stretcher has been set up and medical equipment has been placed. All healthcare providers have gas masks and plastic gloves, which makes it difficult to work. You get slower and clumsy.
– That’s why they have to practice it. So that they can handle it in a sharp position, says the German field doctor Luka. He leads the training for the Ukrainians.
First when Patients Wearing in, the healthcare providers know what the poison is: the volatile nerve gas Sarin.
In a lay’s eyes, the exercise seems to go like a dance. The experienced healthcare providers work systematically. Patients, consisting of German soldiers and dolls, receive quickly treatment. But Luka says that a lot of practice is required to act right when it comes to chemical weapons.
– You have to do everything that is necessary. But at the same time as small as possible. Sarin contaminates everything that comes into contact with and therefore it is not possible to use large healthcare devices.
That, says Luka, means that healthcare providers must return to making clinical diagnoses: see, smell and feel.
Then the exercise is over The Ukrainian healthcare providers sit down with their German teachers. For over an hour they go through what you did well and what mistakes were made. A common neglect: too much equipment ended up on the ground or placed in the wrong place and must therefore be discarded.
It may sound prosaic. But Ukraine cannot afford to discard equipment unnecessarily.
– No armies can afford to lose material, Luka notes.
All education that Ukrainian soldiers get in the EU and the UK have not worked as intended. For example, the attempts to teach them are struggling according to NATO Tactics, which combines several different squads became a failure on the battlefield. However, Ruslana and her colleague Mychajlo are convinced that education in defense against chemical warfare is absolutely necessary.
– When I got soldiers who had breathed in gas, we only had water and soda. And Salbutamol (asthma medicine) to facilitate breathing. Here in Germany we learn about emptying, in what doses they should be given and how they should be combined. It is very important to be able to save lives, says Ruslana.
She praises the Germans for being « incredibly well organized ».
– They know how to do things properly. And as simple as possible. We need to learn that more.
But, Ruslana notes, The reality at the front does not look like an army facility in Bavaria.
– Here we have plenty of room to work and a large team, which can treat several patients at the same time. In Ukraine, we must always be in shelters, because we are shot and there are Russian drones everywhere. It is crowded and we can never work in such large teams.
Often, Ukrainian healthcare providers are forced to try to save lives on patients when the severely injured and during the shooting are driven from the front in passenger cars.
– We do not have ideal conditions. But it is war, you have to adapt. We take on what we learn here and adjust so that it works for us in Ukraine. Russia will continue with prohibited weapons, we must be prepared for everything.
