AP PHOTOS: Ukrainian soldiers who returned to the battlefield after amputation
DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — Many Ukrainian brigades have at least one, often several, amputee soldiers still on active duty, who chose to return to combat driven by the sense of responsibility amid the grim outlook for their country.
They were among 380,000 soldiers who were wounded, according to the latest numbers provided by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He also said that 46,000 military were killed over the course of the war, and tens of thousands are considered missing or in captivity.
On the front line, Russia is expending huge amounts of weaponry and human life to make small but steady territorial gains to the nearly 20% of Ukraine it already controls.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is outnumbered and outgunned on the battlefield. The country is also facing challenges with diplomacy, as its once strongest ally — the U.S. — enters talks with Russia, excluding both Ukraine and its European partners.
But it’s precisely this dire situation that has driven wounded soldiers back to the front, where little has changed since they first left their civilian lives years ago to defend their families from an invading neighbor.
Here’s a look at their stories:
Andrii Rubliuk
Rubliuk, 38, is a senior sergeant in Ukrainian special forces unit Artan under military intelligence. He joined the army in 2015 after Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula and Moscow launched armed aggression in the Donetsk region.
In civilian life, Rubliuk was a farmer. In the military, he became an engineer conducting reconnaissance missions. During one such mission in November 2022, an unexploded munition detonated beneath him in the southern Kherson region. He lost both arms, his leg was severely injured and his vision was affected.
Despite this, he returned to the fight in the spring of 2024, taking on a multifaceted role — training new soldiers and monitoring enemy drones on the battlefield.
“Fighting with arms and legs is something anyone can do. Fighting without them — that’s a challenge,” Rubliuk said. “But only those who take on challenges and fight through them are truly alive.”
Maksym Vysotskyi
Before the war, Vysotskyi, 42, was a top manager at one of Ukraine’s largest banks. On the night of his injury in November 2023, he wasn’t supposed to be on a drone-launch mission. But as heavy rains turned the battlefield into a swamp, he took a detour and stepped on a mine.
The explosion was instantaneous. When he looked down at his left leg, all he saw was bone.
“I quickly accepted the fact that my leg was gone. What’s the point of mourning? Crying and worrying won’t bring it back,” he says. By May 2024, he was back in uniform, describing the feeling as “returning home.” Vysotskyi now commands a team operating heavy drones for nighttime missions.
“For personal confidence in life, you need to come out of this not as someone broken by the war and written off, but as someone they tried to break — but couldn’t. You came back, proved you could still do something, and you’ll step away only when you decide to,” he says.
Oleksandr Zhalinskyi
In the fall of 2023, Zhalinskyi, 34, was still in the infantry when an artillery strike hit his position, severing his arm. He was the only one who survived from his group.
When he returned to the army, he embarked on the new role of navigator on evacuation missions, and he now maps routes, evaluates missions, and finds the safest paths to evacuate the infantry, allowing the driver to focus solely on the road.
“At first, I did not like this job. When I returned to service, I was ready to go back to the infantry,” he says. “But over time, I accepted this new role.”
Andrii Serhieiev
Serhieiev, 59, is from the Donetsk region, and that’s the area where he currently serves as a soldier of the 53rd Brigade, which plants and extracts mines.
He was demining an area in the southern Mykolaiv region when he himself stepped on one and lost his leg in January of 2023. Less than six months after the injury, he returned to the military.
“I lived a calm and peaceful life until Russians came,” he said. “And I will be in (this war) until the end.”
Serhii Tumanovskyi
Tumanovskyi, 43, serves in the 114th Brigade of Ukraine’s armed forces, where he assembles drones and prepares them for soldiers to launch.
He lost two legs when his car drove over an anti-tank mine in October 2022 in the Donetsk region.
Tumanovskyi returned to his unit after the injury and rehabilitation in December of 2024.
“I am surprised that (my body) preserved so well,” he said. “I am very lucky.”
Leonid Lobchuk
Lobchuk, 42, is a senior mechanic for artillery systems at the 127th Brigade of Ukraine’s armed forces.
He lost his right leg after a sniper shot at him in February 2015 when Russia first started its armed aggression in eastern Ukraine. He joined the army again in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.
“I returned because I knew that the skills I have are needed in the army,” he said. “I could not stay aside.”
Pavlo Romanovskyi
Romanovskyi, 34, lost his leg after a Russian mine landed near him while he was in the military position in the Donetsk region in the summer of 2023.
Romanovskyi now oversees a drone manufacture laboratory of the 3rd Assault Brigade, where the soldiers are assembling first-person view, or FPV, drones to be shipped off to the front line. He rejoined his brigade at the end of 2024.
“From the first moment (when the injury happened), comrades told me: ‘“We are waiting for you to come back.’”
Serhii Pozniak
Pozniak, 50, serves as a commander of a sniper unit within the 27th Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard.
His left leg was amputated after he stepped on a mine in November 2022 during a counteroffensive in the Donetsk region. He returned to the military in December of 2023.
“We have to fight. I do not think that (the war) will be over soon,” he said. “My (example) motivates others, and the commander must set an example for the soldiers.”
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By HANNA ARHIROVA, EVGENIY MALOLETKA and VASILISA STEPANENKO
Associated Press
