Wounded soldier reflects on his recovery

NEW YORK – “He wants to know if he can shake hands,” said translator Roman Horodenskyi as he stood next to the 20-year-old Ukrainian soldier.

“He’s only had his arm for two weeks, so he’s still getting used to operating it,” added a translator during an interview with CNBC in November. He then told Horodenskyi in his native Ukrainian that he could practice greetings.

The 6-foot-3-inch Ukrainian Marine smiled and extended his right arm, a lightweight composite of silicone, carbon fiber composite and thermoplastic. Taking a few deep breaths, the 230-pound soft soldier gazed down at the dynamic part, widened his fingers and slowly tightened his grip on the reporter’s hand.

He breathed a sigh of relief and another smile moved across his face.

“He lost his arms and legs when the mine exploded,” said Horodenskyi’s translator, Roman Vengrenyuk, a volunteer for Revived Soldiers Ukraine, a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing wounded troops to the U.S. for specialized health care.

Horodenskyi, a double amputee as a result of the Russian war, is one of 65 wounded members of the Ukrainian service to benefit from the non-profit work, which provides treatment in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Orlando. Vengrenyuk has accompanied Horodenskyi to New York for events in recent months, raising awareness of what is now a tragic, year-long Russian attack on Ukraine.

“Our nonprofit found him, and he’s only 20 years old. He has a lot more life ahead of him,” Vengrenyuk told CNBC, adding that the two became fast and deep friends.

In a separate conversation with CNBC, Revived Soldiers Ukraine President Iryna Discipio said efforts to help wounded soldiers are “very important.”

“Ukraine is focused on the war, and we help the heroes who are left behind. We help the Ukrainian army by taking care of the wounded soldiers,” said Discipio.

“Also, it is important to show in the United States the results of this war,” he added.

Horodenskyi, referred to as the “miracle of Mariupol,” is one of the defenders of Ukraine who survived the Russian massacre of the strategic port city last spring.

At noon on February 24, Russian forces stormed the Ukrainian border as missiles streaked across the dark sky, marking the start of the largest air, sea and ground offensive in Europe since World War II.

In the months leading up to the full-scale invasion, the US and its Western allies have watched the Kremlin build up troops along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus. The increased military presence mimics Russia’s moves before its 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, a peninsula on the Black Sea, which sparked international uproar and triggered sanctions aimed at Moscow’s war machine.

The Kremlin has always denied that the deployment of colossal troops along the Ukrainian border is a prelude to an attack.

Since Russia invaded its former Soviet allies a year ago, the war has claimed the lives of more than 8,000 civilians, caused nearly 13,300 injuries and displaced more than 8 million people, according to UN estimates.

Meanwhile, the lives of many soldiers such as Horodenskyi who had survived the ordeal were forever changed by the brutal conflict.

At the time of the invasion, Horodenskyi was serving with the 36th Ukrainian Marine Brigade as a machine gunner near Mariupol. Following in the footsteps of the men in his family, Horodenskyi had entered the military at the age of 18. He changed his hometown of Odesa, a municipality on the Black Sea coast, to the southeastern port city of Mariupol on the Sea of ​​Azov.

In April, marines in Horodenskyi’s unit were the first line of defense in the city, which was home to 400,000 people before the war.

The units were scattered around the perimeter of the Illich Iron and Steel Works, Europe’s largest manufacturer of galvanized steel, when Russian fire hit their positions. Horodenskyi moved behind the tree.

While he could remember the mine explosion that took his left leg and tore off his right arm, the aftermath was a blur.

He remembers his fellow marines moving him, he remembers the pressure of the tourniquets and the rush to the makeshift field hospital.

“I was in a dark basement shelter with other wounded soldiers. There was no medicine or supplies or food. There was nothing,” Horodenskyi said.

For a little over a week, he stayed at the place with his “brothers”, as he called them, until he ran out of painkillers, bandages, water and ammunition. Meanwhile, the Russians bombarded Ukrainian marines who had been disbanded, and their troops continued to advance.

“Their commander made the difficult decision to surrender to Russia, and the wounded were taken to a field hospital in Donetsk,” Vengrenyuk said. “In the facility, there is one side to it [uninjured] imprisoned, another for wounded Ukrainian soldiers and a separate area for wounded Russian soldiers.”

Horodenskyi detailed a harrowing account of nearly three weeks in a Russian military hospital. Russian troops remained in the hospital that could move themselves and were allowed access to open rooms where wounded Ukrainian soldiers were kept. He openly beat, harassed and tortured Horodenskyi and his friends, he said.

He remembers a group of Russian soldiers by the bed picking at a bone that was sticking out of his right shoulder. Soldiers took turns to interrogate while holding the bone and twisting it, he said.

He remembers being in a lot of pain.

While he was in the hospital, Horodenskyi’s condition quickly deteriorated, and Russian surgeons amputated what was left of his right arm. By May, he had gone septic, a condition that threatens organ failure, tissue damage and death if not treated quickly.

With sepsis and less than a week to live, Horodenskyi returned to the Ukrainian military in a prisoner exchange.

“The Russian commander clearly did not want Roman to die in the hospital because he could not be used as a bargaining chip to release one of them,” Vengrenyuk said. “But he is young and strong enough to survive.”

Horodenskyi underwent nearly a dozen surgeries in his hometown of Odesa before traveling to the United States, where he was fitted with prosthetics.

He received a prosthetic leg in Orlando in September, and then an arm in Eddystone, Pennsylvania, about 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia.

“To think about all that he’s done,” certified prosthetist Michael Rayer, of Prosthetic Innovations in Eddystone, told CNBC when asked to describe Horodenskyi’s journey.

“Just the best people,” he added.

Rayer recalled that when he first met Horodenskyi, he noticed that the Russian amputation had left only about half an inch of humerus bone in his right arm. It makes the prosthetic fitting process more difficult.

“They really don’t have a lot of real estate to work with,” Rayer said. “There’s a lot of weight transferred to the small parts that are still small, so we spend a lot of time refining the prosthesis to make sure it’s comfortable.”

“Our office has a lot of experience with poly trauma, which is people who have lost multiple limbs, which adds a different treatment,” he said. “Because, how do you put on one of the lower extremities if you are the only one or if you have no arms?”

Rayer, who spent a total of eight weeks with Horodenskyi, said the prosthetic arm he received could cost up to $70,000.

“We donate all the time, and we can do about half of that,” Rayer said.

Rayer added that it can take months to years to develop full mastery of the prosthesis. He said that while everyone takes a different amount of time to adjust, he noted that in his work with Ukrainian soldiers, he found them to be “very mechanically adept.”

“They really know how something works, and they know how to make it work for them. I don’t know if that’s military training, but they all seem to really adjust fairly quickly,” he added.

After he received treatment in the US, Horodenskyi returned to Ukraine and proposed to his girlfriend, Viktoriia Olianiyk, whom he had dated before the war broke out. The couple got married in December in Ukraine.

Horodenskyi’s accident has not dampened his desire to rejoin the military, as Ukrainian troops have remained longer than anyone outside the country expecting them to fight Moscow’s might.

“I really want to go back to the fight,” he told CNBC in his native Ukrainian, pausing for Vengrenyuk to translate.

“My whole country is at war, and many of my relatives are still in prison,” he said.