The story of Alexander, defender of Mariupol and prisoner from Azovstal

Military Oleksandr is 27 years old. He served in the "Azov" unit for one and a half years. On February 24, following an anti-aircraft defense alarm, he and other soldiers were sent to practice priority positions in the village of Mala Yalta. Already while there, he learned on the news that full-scale fighting was going on all over Ukraine. His unit went to defend the city of Mariupol.

At the beginning of April, Oleksandr was wounded during the fighting at a firing position in the residential area of ​​Cheremushki. A Russian sniper shot him in the lower thigh and broke the bone.

Help was provided at night of the same day, at the command and observation post. In the middle of the night on April 10, the wounded man was evacuated to Azovstal. Until May 16, Oleksandr was in the plant's medical bunker all the time.

"You just lie down and listen to anti-bunker bombs fired from airplanes fly by. You understand that, in fact, your fate is only in the hands of God, because nothing can be done. At the will of chance, it will fly or not. It so happened that I was lying in the center of the bunker, and it was a lottery," Oleksandr recalls.

Since May 17, Oleksandr has been in captivity in the Donetsk Rehabilitation Center No. 5. According to Oleksandr, the captive patients had drinking water and food, although it was monotonous. At the same time, the attitude was unbearable: 1 roll of toilet paper for 40 patients, constant moral abuse, only minimal bandages (hydrogen solution and cotton wool) instead of applying a plaster cast or treating a bullet wound. Surgical intervention only in case of gangrene. Complete unsanitary. No one carried out the operations that were promised to our defenders. Oleksandr lay all the time with a bullet in his thigh and a plaster cast that crumbled from time to time. Because of this, he developed bedsores.

"As I arrived with a broken hip, I was laid up until the exchange. Moreover, in my leg, which was under a plaster cast, I had a bed sore from being in a plaster cast for a long time in a static state. But none of the center's medical staff wanted to see what was happening to my leg," the soldier admitted.

At the end of June, Oleksandr got into a prisoner exchange and was taken to an emergency hospital in Zaporizhzhia, where he was given full medical care.

"We did absolutely everything that needed to be done a long time ago. And they inserted a titanium rod, and took out the ball. "Unfortunately, because of such a long delay, my leg has become a couple of centimeters shorter, and it will still have to be operated on to be lengthened," Oleksandr says.

The Future for Ukraine Fund paid for Oleksandr's surgery and wishes him a full recovery.

We are ready to continue helping other injured defenders of the Motherland together with you.

The Foundation receives many applications for the provision of metal-osteosynthesis systems — the joining of bone fragments with the help of titanium plates. The cost of such a system for one limb ranges from UAH 8,000 to UAH 15,000.

You can make a contribution specifically for victims who need metal-osteosynthesis on our website in the "Cases" section.