In Ukraine, on board a secret train to evacuate wounded soldiers

It's an ordinary blue and yellow train, on the platform of an equally ordinary station. But through one of its foggy windows, the face of a Ukrainian soldier can be seen lying on a hospital bed, part of his nose torn off and wounds on his cheeks.

All the passengers in this special Ukrainian army convoy are soldiers wounded in combat and evacuated to a hospital.

Near the front, many medical infrastructures have been destroyed by Russian strikes and those that remain are quickly overloaded by the influx of patients.

The train “allows you to transport a lot of people at once”, explains Oleksandr, a 46-year-old military doctor in charge of evacuating these soldiers. It is also less dangerous than a helicopter given the Russian air “threat”, he notes.

But wagons full of soldiers, even wounded ones, also risk being targeted and the operation is taking place in the greatest secrecy. The route, for example, cannot be made public.

AFP was nevertheless authorized to board this train, to which journalists very rarely have access.

– Vertige –

That day, several dozen wounded are expected. Arriving by ambulance, they are pushed aboard in stretchers and installed in beds with flowery sheets. On the walls, Ukrainian flags sit alongside children's drawings and patriotic messages.

A Ukrainian soldier aboard the military evacuation train on October 18, 2024 © AFP – Roman PILIPEY

Inside, the carriages look like real hospitals. Except that the staff and furniture sway a little along the tracks, once the convoy is moving.

Inserting a catheter or giving an injection in a moving vehicle is “difficult,” confides nurse Viktoria, dressed all in khaki except for her blue plastic gloves.

“You often get dizzy afterwards,” says the 25-year-old woman, standing in front of a window through which the landscape passes by. The damage of the war, which she witnesses, is even more dizzying.

“I understand the number of wounded now,” continues Viktoria. “It's hard to see it every day.”

Ukraine communicates very little about its losses, as does Russia. At the end of February, President Volodymyr Zelensky had claimed that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, a figure that is probably an underestimate, observers say.

The number of injured, generally much higher, has never been revealed.

– Amputations –

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The vast majority of passengers were victims of artillery fire or a drone attack. Many of them had to have amputations and some are still unconscious.

One of the cars is an intensive care unit, which allows people in serious condition to be transported.

Doctors can even operate if necessary, but only in cases of “force majeure,” notes Dr. Oleksandr.

Massive hemorrhages, unpredictable and rapid killers, are one of the fears of caregivers. A few minutes can be enough for a person to succumb.

That is why the team is “constantly next to the patients,” explains Oleksandr. Nurses and doctors must take turns to go to the toilet or eat.

For one caregiver, Olena, the most pernicious injuries are elsewhere. “The morale (of the soldiers) is difficult,” she says modestly.

“They are not worried about having had a limb amputated” but “what depresses them is the state of their comrades, their family,” she adds.

– “Not all of them have returned” –

A 28-year-old soldier by the nom de guerre of Mourtchyk was shot in the lung when his group was ambushed.

“There were four of us when we left, but we didn't all come back,” he says, sitting on his bed. One of his comrades did not survive this Russian attack.

On the train, the young man enjoys “the warmth, the food and the medicine” but he may soon return to the harsh conditions of the front, as many other wounded soldiers do after their convalescence, if their health allows it.

Aboard the Ukrainian military evacuation train, October 18, 2024 © AFP – Roman PILIPEY

Ukrainian forces are short-handed, facing a massive Russian army. And they are struggling in the east, where the enemy is gaining ground.

Murchyk's fate will depend on the decision of the medical commission. “But I would like to go back,” he assures.

– “Blow” –

The Ukrainian army has been carrying out these rail evacuations since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, using a modus operandi used during the First and Second World Wars.

Over time, the project has grown and several trains have been completely refitted by the Ukrainian state railway company.

On arrival, ambulances are already waiting. On the platform, the ballet of stretcher-bearers then takes on a frantic pace to take the soldiers to the hospitals as quickly as possible.

It is only “when the train is empty” that Oleksandr says he can “breathe a sigh of relief”.

“It is of course very stressful”, admits the military doctor. His respite is always short-lived. As long as the war lasts, they will have to leave again and go and get new wounded.

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