Two men in fatigues jumped out of the front of a van that had just screeched to a halt in the parking lot. Screams of pain pierced the air as they opened the back doors of the vehicle: They pulled out a stretcher carrying a soldier who was clutching his intestines in his hands and rushed into a hangar that served as a field hospital. Inside, another man groaned on the ground, his legs so badly damaged that they would likely need to have them amputated on the spot. Comrades rushed to help him, applied a tourniquet and set up an IV drip. Other wounded soldiers had been stabilized and covered with survival blankets. The scene was striking, but it did not unfold under Russian fire in eastern Ukraine; rather, it took place in a barracks in northern England.

The open wounds were very realistic prosthetics, and the wounded were voluntary actors who participated in an intense simulation session in late March for around 50 Ukrainian soldiers trained in battlefield medicine. At the time, talks were ongoing between Washington and Moscow about a potential ceasefire, and Western leaders, spearheaded by France and the UK, were discussing a "coalition of the willing" to oversee a possible halt in the fighting in Ukraine for a month. Meanwhile, the British, who deliver this six-week training program, showed no sign of slowing down. Five or six sessions are conducted per year, with classes of about 50 soldiers per session.

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