Hospital Pounded by Putin’s Army Braces for Fresh Bloodbath

OKHTYRKA, Ukraine—The horror of what happened at the start of the war still haunts 50-year-old Oleg Deinichenko, the medical director of Okhtyrka Hospital. The Russian army had entered the city on the first day of the invasion. They clashed with Ukrainian fighters in what became the start of a months-long bloody campaign to control the city and the roads to the neighboring regions Kharkiv and Poltava.

Hundreds of wounded citizens had flooded the city’s main hospital through March and February, forcing doctors to live in the hospital’s basement for weeks on end. On Feb. 26, the second day of the Russian invasion, 70 Ukrainian soldiers died at an army base in the city center. Shocked, wounded soldiers with missing limbs overran the hospital, Deinichenko told The Daily Beast

“I will never forget one grandfather who died after being hit while walking on the street with his granddaughter. He died, and the granddaughter was brought here. I don’t know how to describe her injuries, they were so terrible,” he said.

The hospital director can’t tell exactly how many patients died during the Russian attempt to take the city, just that the casualty number is in the “hundreds.” On several occasions, the hospital walls were shaking due to shelling of the city while medical staff were treating patients inside.

The Russians withdrew from the area at the end of March after failing to take control of the city. But increased shelling from across the Russian border has Deinichenko fearing that the Russians might soon return. Since the start of war, around 40 percent of his staff have fled, and he is doing everything to prepare for another assault.

“I cannot blame people for leaving. It was terrible, but I try to prepare the best I can,” says Deinichenko. “The danger never stopped. We can be bombed at all times and are preparing for the second wave of Russian aggression. Trying to be psychologically prepared, ensure we have everything we need to prepare for work.”

Sumy governor Dmytro Zhyvytsky wrote on Telegram in May that Ukrainian border guards had stopped a Russian attempt to enter the region with sabotage and reconnaissance groups. In June, Andrii Demchenko, spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, said that the Russian army holds up to three battalion tactical groups near Chernihiv and Sumy regions, stoking fear that the Russian military will try to attack again.

Remnants of fighting are still visible in Okhtyrka. Several administrative buildings and houses are in ruins, and the former military base stands as an empty shell. Grenades have left markings on pavements across the city, and one of the main roads is closed because of several large holes in the ground from Russian bombs.

55-year-old Tanya remembers vividly when the Russians attacked the military base in the city on the second day of the invasion. She was walking on a sidewalk when planes flew over her head and dropped bombs on a road near her home, shaking the ground like an earthquake.

The windows in her house blew out, and the foundation cracked. She ran to her basement, where she said she could hear two more bombs drop nearby.

“Those planes were so fast. So fast. I could see the smoke. It was scary, so scary. I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t have a home now,” said Tanya, who didn’t want to give her last name as she showed us around her basement, where she hid for days. She said her basement has not been stable since the attack. “Don’t hit [anything] on the way in,” she warned. “The whole thing might collapse.”

Like many others in the city, the Russian invasion has ruined her life. Tanya has no money to fix her home and fears that the Russian soldiers will soon return. She asked what the point of fixing everything was if the current peace is only a temporary break.

“I am still so scared. I don’t know what will happen five minutes from now. I can’t shake the fear from my bones. It is right here. I don’t know what to do,” she told The Daily Beast.

It isn’t only the civilians who are worried. The Daily Beast spoke to several soldiers and fighters from the Ukrainian Territorial Defense in the city who are preparing for another Russian attack.

Andrey, a local volunteer from the Territorial Defense Force who didn’t want to provide his last name, vividly remembers the Russian attack on the army base on Feb. 26.

He was close to the Ukrainian military base when it was hit but managed to make an escape with 12 other men. Over the next several days, soldiers and emergency staff worked on finding survivors buried in the rubble.

Like others, he fears the horrors from February and March will return.

“The occupiers want to destroy us, kill our wife’s children, and take them from Ukraine if we don’t defend ourselves. We don’t attack; we just defend our land,” said Andrey. He added that he will fight to the very end, and expects victory. “We can’t be beaten.”