Saving Lives Under Fire: The Extraordinary Journey of a Ukrainian Medical Evacuation Driver
By Matthew Parish
Sunday 8 November 2026
From the bomb shelters of Kharkiv to the drone-dominated battlefields of eastern Ukraine, Artem tells the Lviv Herald about courage, survival and the struggle to save every possible life.
When Russia launched her full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Artem was working in a factory in the Czech Republic. Like millions of Ukrainians, he was suddenly confronted with a decision that would change his life. He could remain abroad, where he had employment and relative safety, or return to his native Kharkiv, a city already coming under devastating Russian attack. He chose to go home, taking with him humanitarian supplies collected with the assistance of his Czech colleagues.
What followed was a journey through some of the most difficult experiences of the Ukrainian war. Beginning as a volunteer driver for the Ukrainian Red Cross, Artem delivered food and medicines to civilians sheltering underground, helped evacuate people from dangerous neighbourhoods and provided emergency first aid. He subsequently joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine, initially serving in the medical service of the International Legion, and today works as a medical evacuation driver with the First Separate Medical Battalion.
His experiences span a remarkable transformation in the nature of the conflict. The desperate improvisation of the invasion's opening weeks has given way to a battlefield increasingly dominated by drones, where the traditional medical ideal of evacuating a wounded soldier within the so-called golden hour has become almost impossible to achieve. New robotic technologies offer the prospect of reducing the dangers to evacuation teams, but the essential human task remains unchanged: reaching wounded people, treating their injuries and bringing them to safety.
In this interview with the Lviv Herald, Artem discusses his memories of Kharkiv in March 2022, the practical and psychological challenges of military medical evacuation, the importance of modern battlefield technology and the extraordinary emotional burden borne by those whose profession is to save lives. His account is occasionally humorous, sometimes harrowing and consistently modest about the courage that his work requires.
A life interrupted
Matthew Parish: Artem, please tell us a little about yourself. Where did you grow up, what did you do before Russia's full-scale invasion and what was your life like before the war?
Artem: I was born and grew up in Kharkiv. Before the war, I worked as a high-altitude installation technician. I have a wonderful little daughter who, together with my former wife and my mother, had to move abroad at the beginning of the war.
What was life like before the Russian invasion? It was the best life, in the best city!
Matthew Parish: You began working as a driver for the Ukrainian Red Cross emergency response unit in Kharkiv on 5 March 2022, just nine days after the full-scale invasion began. What motivated you to make that decision at precisely that moment?
Artem: When the war began, I was in the Czech Republic, in Jablonec nad Nisou, working at the Vinolock factory.
I am extremely grateful to Ms Buriankova and the entire team there. They helped me collect medicines, equipment and everything else we needed to deliver humanitarian assistance to Kharkiv.
Even then, I had decided that I wanted to join the military, but fate had other plans for me.
When I delivered the humanitarian aid to the Kharkiv branch of the Ukrainian Red Cross, I asked whether they needed any additional help. They replied that they needed a driver with his own vehicle who could deliver humanitarian supplies to the most dangerous areas of the city.
From that moment onwards, together with my close friend Andriy, we began delivering humanitarian aid, providing first aid and evacuating people.
Kharkiv under bombardment
Matthew Parish: How do you remember Kharkiv during the first weeks of the war? What was happening on the city's streets and how had everyday life changed for its inhabitants?
Artem: During the first weeks of the war, everyone was terribly frightened. Nobody knew what to do. Most of the population were living in metro stations, basements and bomb shelters.
Going out onto the streets was a deadly lottery.
Matthew Parish: What were your first assignments with the Red Cross? Did you feel prepared for what you were going to see and do?
Artem: My first assignment was in the Rohan area of Kharkiv. We had to deliver food to people who were sheltering in a bomb shelter on the premises of a factory. There were about 50 people there.
It was difficult to prepare myself psychologically, but when you haven't seen something with your own eyes, your imagination conjures up something even worse.
From humanitarian volunteer to soldier
Matthew Parish: You worked with the Red Cross for more than a year before joining the military on 10 July 2023. Why did you decide to exchange humanitarian work for military service?
Artem: More people were beginning to get involved in the humanitarian effort, and I felt that my help was now needed more in the military. So I decided to accept an offer from my friend Denys and join the medical service of the International Legion.
Matthew Parish: What are the fundamental differences between driving for a Red Cross emergency response team and driving medical evacuation vehicles in a military medical battalion? What has remained the same?
Artem: The body armour is heavier and you have a weapon. Otherwise, everything is exactly the same!
The First Separate Medical Battalion
Matthew Parish: Tell us about the First Separate Medical Battalion. What is its principal mission and what, in your opinion, distinguishes the people who serve in it?
Artem: The battalion's main mission is to save people's lives, provide them with high-quality medical care and ensure that they receive further assistance afterwards.
To evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield, we use a ground-based robotic system called the Maul.
Everyone working in the First Medical Battalion is a volunteer who came here of their own free will because they wanted to save lives.
Matthew Parish: To a civilian, medical evacuation often appears straightforward: collect the wounded person and transport them to hospital as quickly as possible. How closely does that picture correspond to the realities of modern warfare?
Artem: Well, put simply, that is exactly what it is. But there is a great deal more involved: planning, coordination, communications, changes in the tactical situation and providing medical assistance during the journey.
The disappearance of the golden hour
Matthew Parish: Medical professionals often speak of the so-called 'golden hour', the critical period for saving a wounded person after an injury. How applicable is this concept to the war in Ukraine, where evacuation can sometimes be extraordinarily difficult and prolonged?
Artem: In Ukraine, we don't have the possibility of evacuating wounded people that quickly, and unfortunately, under present circumstances, we cannot achieve it.
Modern warfare, with its extensive use of drones, makes the existence of the golden hour impossible.
But technology is advancing, and I hope that we will find a way to solve this problem.
Matthew Parish: How has medical evacuation changed with the development of drones and other modern military technologies? Has rescuing wounded soldiers become more difficult than it used to be?
Artem: Sending an unmanned ground vehicle to collect a wounded soldier is definitely safer. It makes our work easier and considerably safer.
Matthew Parish: What physical and psychological qualities does a good medical evacuation driver need? Are there things that cannot be learned during training and can only be acquired through experience?
Artem: You need a strong nervous system and good physical fitness. You also need basic military training.
And you mustn't be afraid of blood.
Decisions under fire
Matthew Parish: Have you encountered situations in which you had to make extraordinarily difficult decisions in circumstances of danger, limited time or scarce resources? How do you decide what must be done first?
Artem: We have an established protocol for these situations, and that is what guides our decisions. It is standard procedure in the army. We try to be prepared for any possible development of events.
Two lives saved beside a burning vehicle
Matthew Parish: If you feel comfortable discussing it, is there a particular story of rescuing a wounded soldier that has remained especially vivid in your memory? Why that particular story?
Artem: There are actually quite a few.
One of the most recent happened when we were returning from a mission to our duty station. We saw a burning vehicle on the road that had been hit by an FPV drone.
There were two wounded men lying underneath it. My comrade and I quickly pulled them out and loaded them into our vehicle.
While my colleague was giving them medical assistance, I drove them to our battalion's stabilisation point.
Both men survived.
The emotional cost of saving lives
Matthew Parish: What does a medical evacuation driver feel when he succeeds in saving someone's life? And how do you cope with occasions when, despite everyone's best efforts, a person cannot be saved?
Artem: We do everything we possibly can, and we fight for every single life. So when we succeed, what you feel is relief. You can relax a little.
When we don't succeed, there is terrible emotional strain. You find yourself trying to identify mistakes in your own work, even when there weren't any.
Losing someone is very hard. These are our people.
Matthew Parish: You have experienced the war both as a humanitarian worker and as a serviceman. How have these experiences changed your attitudes towards human life, death, fear and personal responsibility?
Artem: Life is the most precious thing we have. Fear comes when you don't know what to do.
I have become more psychologically resilient and better prepared to deal with emergency situations.
The meaning of courage
Matthew Parish: Has your understanding of courage changed during the years of war? Who, in your eyes, is a genuine hero today?
Artem: Courage means overcoming your fear and defending Ukraine.
The heroes are those who have sacrificed their lives, their health or time with their families and friends to protect Ukraine's future.
The importance of psychological resilience
Matthew Parish: How do you recover psychologically after particularly difficult evacuations? In your opinion, is sufficient attention paid to the mental health of military medics and evacuation drivers?
Artem: Yes, we have enough opportunities to recover and rest because, fortunately, we have other people who can take over when our shifts end.
Of course, sometimes there is an enormous amount of work, but generally speaking, everything is fine!
The courage of those who save lives
There is something particularly affecting about Artem's account because he describes extraordinary circumstances with such apparent simplicity. When the Russian invasion began, he was working in the Czech Republic, where he could have remained in relative safety. Instead, he gathered medical supplies, travelled back to a city under bombardment and volunteered to help those who were unable to help themselves. His first assignment was to bring food to approximately 50 frightened people sheltering underground in a factory. Three and a half years later, he is still performing essentially the same moral task, although the circumstances and the technologies have changed almost beyond recognition.
The evolution of his work mirrors the transformation of the Ukrainian battlefield. In March 2022, the overwhelming problem was the immediate humanitarian catastrophe confronting civilians in Kharkiv. Streets were dangerous, shops were closed or inaccessible, families had taken refuge underground and the basic necessities of life could no longer be taken for granted. Artem and his friend Andriy drove into dangerous neighbourhoods to bring people food and medical assistance. Their work required courage, but also the practical virtues of reliability, improvisation and the ability to function amid uncertainty.
Today the challenges are different, although no less formidable. The proliferation of Russian reconnaissance and attack drones has transformed the nature of battlefield medical evacuation, making the movement of conventional vehicles extraordinarily hazardous. The medical principle of the golden hour, the aspiration to provide urgent treatment as rapidly as possible after a serious injury, has been overtaken by operational circumstances in which reaching a wounded soldier may itself create additional casualties. The problem is not that rapid medical intervention has become any less important, but that the battlefield has made its timely delivery increasingly difficult.
Artem's battalion is responding to these challenges through the use of unmanned ground vehicles, including the Maul robotic system. Such technologies may allow wounded soldiers to be retrieved from locations where sending additional personnel would expose them to unacceptable risks. There is a certain irony in the fact that one form of unmanned technology has made battlefield medical evacuation more dangerous, while another may help to make it safer. It is a reminder that technological innovation in warfare serves contradictory purposes: the development of more efficient means of killing and the equally urgent search for more effective means of preserving life.
Yet it is Artem's account of rescuing two wounded men from beneath a burning vehicle that perhaps most clearly illustrates the nature of his profession. He and his colleagues were returning from a mission when they encountered a vehicle struck by an FPV drone. Rather than continuing their journey, they stopped, pulled the wounded men from beneath the wreckage and brought them to safety. While his comrade Alabai administered medical assistance, Artem drove to their battalion's stabilisation point. Both patients survived. The incident is described without embellishment, as though rescuing two injured men from a burning vehicle were simply another part of an ordinary working day.
It is tempting to describe such incidents in the language of heroism, but Artem himself offers a more complicated understanding of what it means to be courageous. He does not suggest that brave people are without fear. Quite the opposite: courage, in his account, consists of overcoming fear in the service of a greater purpose. He also understands that professional competence is essential to overcoming fear. Knowing what to do, following established procedures and being prepared for emergencies are not merely administrative conveniences. They are the means by which individuals learn to function effectively in circumstances that might otherwise overwhelm them.
His reflections upon death are equally revealing. When a patient survives, the predominant emotion is relief rather than triumph. When a patient dies, there is anguish and a tendency to search for mistakes, even where none may have occurred. That response suggests the immense personal responsibility felt by those whose professional lives are dedicated to rescuing others. Medical evacuation is not merely a technical exercise in transporting casualties. It is a sustained encounter with human vulnerability, suffering and the limits of what even the most determined rescuers can achieve.
Perhaps the most significant words in the entire interview are Artem's explanation of why losing a patient is so difficult: 'These are our people.' There is no elaborate political theory in this observation, nor any attempt to distinguish one person's life from another according to military rank, social standing or professional importance. It expresses the sense of solidarity that binds a nation under attack, and particularly those who have volunteered to devote themselves to preserving the lives of others.
There is a further personal dimension to Artem's story. His daughter, former wife and mother were obliged to seek safety abroad, while he returned to the city of his birth and eventually entered military service. His account offers only a glimpse of the private sacrifices involved, but that glimpse is sufficient to remind us that Ukraine's military personnel are not abstract figures in a conflict described by maps and casualty statistics. They are parents, children, friends and colleagues whose personal lives have been profoundly disrupted by a war they did not choose.
Artem's affection for Kharkiv is unmistakable. Asked what life was like before the invasion, he replies that it was the best life, in the best city. His answer may appear light-hearted, but it conveys an emotional truth about the Ukrainian attachment to home. Kharkiv was not merely a geographical location or an industrial centre close to the Russian border. For Artem, it represented an entire world of ordinary happiness, family life, friendships and professional ambitions that the invasion violently interrupted.
Today, he works in a military medical battalion whose members, he says, have volunteered because they want to save lives. His description of the differences between civilian humanitarian evacuation and military service is characteristically laconic: the armour is heavier and there is a weapon, but otherwise the work is the same. Beneath the humour lies a profound continuity of purpose. Whether delivering food to families trapped beneath Kharkiv in March 2022 or evacuating wounded soldiers from the drone-threatened battlefield in November 2026, Artem is engaged in the preservation of human life.
His story does not require rhetorical exaggeration. The decision to return to Ukraine, the first humanitarian delivery to a factory bomb shelter, the years of medical evacuation work and the rescue of two wounded men from beneath a burning vehicle speak for themselves. They illustrate the contribution of people whose actions seldom appear in military communiqués but without whom the human cost of this war would be immeasurably greater.
In the end, Artem offers a definition of heroism that is both simple and demanding. Heroes are those who have sacrificed their lives, their health and their time with those they love to defend Ukraine's future. His own work is dedicated to ensuring that, wherever possible, fewer Ukrainians are required to make the ultimate sacrifice. That is an aspiration worthy of the highest respect, and one that reminds us that even in the midst of an exceptionally destructive war, the determination to preserve human life remains among the most powerful expressions of human courage.
