AFP: Ukraine's volunteer frontline medics get by with DIY
Vodiane (Ukraine) (AFP) - From doctors to students and businessmen, volunteers are risking their lives to evacuate wounded Ukrainian soldiers from the frontline.
In the village of Vodiane, near Donetsk airport where heavy fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces has flared again since Thursday, Yuri Bondar mans an ambulance, racing against time to shuttle the wounded to local hospitals.
Soldiers take the injured out of the airport -- one of the war's hottest flashpoints -- in armoured vehicles to an area defended by the ultra-nationalist group Pravy Sektor, or Right Sector, where two volunteer ambulances, one driven by 29-year-old Yuri, stand waiting.
Some of the wounded walk with a limp, others lean on the shoulders of their comrades, and a few arrive in a very bad way.
"He has a bullet somewhere in the back," one soldier told the medics helping load a badly-wounded comrade into a van. The man was swaddled in a bloodied duvet and survival blanket and was still clutching his cellphone.
Civilian volunteers immediately tried to stabilise him, giving him an IV drip.
Many of the wounded have injuries inflicted in rocket or mortar attacks, showing the ferocity of the fighting at the airport.
In theory, Yuri's job is only to transport the wounded, but due to the lack of doctors, he and his colleagues often provide first aid to the most seriously wounded.
"The defence ministry has army doctors who could save lives but they are not here," said Yuri, who has taken on the nickname Shaman.
Some civilian doctors, however, come to work on the frontline in time off from their regular jobs.
In the village of Piski, closer still to Donetsk airport, one such volunteer told AFP he worked full time as a surgeon in a military hospital at Khmelnytskiy in western Ukraine.
He wanted to enrol as a doctor in the war zone but was turned down, so now he works for two weeks straight without a break so he can come and help on ambulances run by Right Sector on his days off.
- 'Someone has to do it' -
Even Russia’s friends, for the most part, showed little appetite for relaxing sanctions in “strategic” EU talks in Brussels on Monday (19 January).
Summing up the debate, EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini told press there was a “consensus” they should stay in place until Russia pulls back from east Ukraine.
...
“There is no normalisation. There is no back to business as usual”.
The Czech Republic, Germany’s foreign minister, and Hungary - which had criticised EU sanctions in recent months - sent out similar messages.
Germany’s Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: "Given the current situation in east Ukraine, nobody expressed the desire to loosen some of the Russia sanctions”.
Hungary’s Peter Szijjarto added that Russia has done nothing to comply with last year's so-called Minsk peace deal. “Without it, there can be no positive change”, he said.
Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni, who in December said the EU should “re-engage” with Russia, devoted his press comments to counter-terrorism.
Austria, Luxembourg, and Spain spoke more softly on Russia but stopped short of calling for a sanctions roll-back.
Austria said the EU should start thinking “how to put the relationship with Russia back on a solid footing in the long-term”.
Luxembourg noted the EU must show Moscow the sanctions are not meant to “destabilise” Russia, while Spain said the EU should separate its sanctions in two - on the annexation of Crimea (to stay in place) and on east Ukraine (to change in line with the situation).
This ends our live-blogging for January 19. Be sure to check back tomorrow for our continuing coverage.