‘We Are To Blame’: Why A Leading Russian Surgeon Volunteers At A Ukrainian Military Hospital

Before he left Russia in the fall of 2022 in fear of prosecution for his opposition to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Andrei Volna was one of the country’s leading orthopedic surgeons. He and his family now live in Estonia, but for the last two months he has volunteered at a Kyiv area military hospital, treating, for the most part, Ukrainian soldiers wounded in combat.

Volna is applying for a long-term visa to continue his work in Ukraine. He spoke with Sergei Medvedev of RFE/RL’s Russian Service about his experiences and impressions as a Russian in wartime Ukraine.

RFE/RL: As I understand, where you have been working, they don’t have to make immediate life-and-death decisions like on the front line regarding those who must be treated first and those who must wait.

Andrei Volna: That did happen in my hospital, but before I got there, back when Russian forces were just a few kilometers away in Irpen and Bucha and were trying to seize the airport in Hostomel. Then they brought the wounded – military and civilian – for triage.

Now, thank goodness, when the front line has been pushed back some distance from the capital of Ukraine, they don’t do triage at that hospital because the patients arrive already stabilized. Now surgeons at the hospital must cope with later complications of serious injuries. Mostly, we are talking about wound infections or generalized infections, more commonly known as blood infection.

RFE/RL: You have considerable experience as an emergency-room doctor and orthopedic surgeon. You worked with coal miners in Siberia’s Kemerovo region. But combat injuries, I imagine, are a whole new experience for you.

Volna: In my first six years as a doctor, I worked with miners in Siberia. There were many different types of injuries there, including some caused by methane explosions. Fortunately, not all those blasts were fatal and some of the miners were brought to the hospital with various injuries. I did encounter some very serious injuries then, although not in the quantities that I see where I’m working now.

More than 90 percent of [the] injuries [I see now] are from mines or other explosions, rather than gunfire. Gunshot wounds are generally simpler and are handled closer to the front, compared to explosion wounds. Of course, I have never before seen such a large quantity of such wounds in one place.

RFE/RL: Let me ask you about life in Kyiv, life under bombardment. Have you gotten used to that over your two months? Did you ever experience an air-raid in the hospital?

Volna: There were numerous alarms when we were in the operating room, but no one even thought about interrupting an operation.

As for everyday life in Kyiv, I was really impressed when I went to the theater. In Kyiv, I saw the play called Three Comrades, an anti-war show based on a novel [by the 20th-century German writer Erich Maria Remarque] that I read to tatters when I was young. That made quite an impression.

At the beginning of the performance, they made an announcement: “Dear spectators! In this performance you will hear air-raid sirens, gunfire, and explosions. Do not be afraid. This is just the audio component of the performance. In the event of a real alarm, we will interrupt the performance with a special announcement. The nearest bomb shelter is 200 meters away in the Khreshchatyk metro station. When the all-clear is sounded, the performance will continue.”

RFE/RL: I read in some interviews with you that one of the first things you did in Ukraine was to visit Bucha, the city outside of Kyiv where compelling evidence has been uncovered that Russian forces committed systematic war crimes against civilians in the early months of the war. What were your impressions?

Volna: Like any foreigner, I had to get a pass to go to a military hospital, so I had several days to wait, during which I could check out more closely what was happening in Kyiv and the surrounding area. So on the first day I went to Bucha.

Last summer, they unveiled a memorial where the names of almost all of the victims are inscribed. Some bodies are still being identified. But there are 511 names of those who were murdered or who died in Bucha during the Russian occupation in February and March of 2022. They were people of all ages, from over 90 to infants just a few months old.

Bucha itself has been repaired and rebuilt, but it still produces a somber impression. It is sort of a vacation town just 4 kilometers from the Kyiv ring road. There are a lot of comparable towns in the Moscow region – where there are a lot of trees and old, wooden houses, as well as expensive, modern villas…. When you remember the photographs and when you walk up to the memorial….

At first it was in a central park and then they moved it to the cathedral, where more than 100 people the Russians killed were buried in a mass grave. Luckily, I was the only one there when I visited, so no one disturbed me and my thoughts.

RFE/RL: What are your views on the topic of the collective responsibility of all of Russia and of each Russian person, including those who have spoken out against the government, for what has happened?

Volna: I feel responsible, and I understand that I must bear my share of collective responsibility. I often think back on the past and try to understand where our mistakes were. I think the tipping point came sometime during the 1990s, when broad professional opportunities opened up. We – I mean myself and my friends – were distracted by the introduction of new technologies and the chance for professional growth. Maybe it was then, when we were all busy with our careers and let the “professionals” take care of politics. Maybe that was the mistake we all made.

But my mistake – and I blame myself for this – was that it wasn’t enough to make a career. It was wrong not to get involved in politics, especially when pillars like [Galina] Starovoitova were leaving the stage. They were replaced by gray, faceless people who later turned out to have come from the KGB and the Federal Security Service. That was when the country slipped away. That is where, in my opinion, the germ of my responsibility for what is happening lies.

Of course, we are all responsible. When you come to Ukraine, you understand that you must be ready for any negative reaction because you are a representative of the aggressor country. Ukrainians aren’t obligated to know about your anti-war views. They just know you are Russian. When I came to Ukraine to volunteer and to help my doctor friends, I was ready for any reaction, including from patients because I am Russian, and I bear the mark of responsibility.

RFE/RL: Have you encountered such reactions?

Volna: No. It is amazing. But when I go back to Ukraine, I will still be ready for it because any Russian deserves such treatment from Ukrainians. Because we lost our country – not only for ourselves, but we allowed it to become aggressive and bring death to another country. Of course, we are to blame, and every one of us shares this collective responsibility. This burden – which is nothing compared to what Ukrainians are enduring – belongs to us, to our children, and to future generations.

RFE/RL: Not many doctors, at least not many prominent ones, have spoken out against the Russian government or the war. Why has the medical community been so obedient?

Volna: I think there is an explanation. As a rule, the doctors who were most prominent before the invasion were working in high-tech areas and were very dependent on their employers. If they lost their jobs, they could have a hard time finding another comparable one. That is an explanation, not a justification.

I think I have the right to say this because this collective cowardice of ours — and the few exceptions only confirm the rule — is one of the most terrible things that has happened to Russian society in recent times. A doctor, particularly a traumatologist or orthopedist, must a priori be against war because war is just an epidemic of traumas.

For me, this has been the most profound disappointment which I, undoubtedly, will carry with me for the rest of my days.

Translated and adapted from the Russian by RFE/RL’s Robert Coalson.