After more than three years of war, thousands of Ukrainians struggle with the physical and emotional trauma of severe facial injuries.
Doctors use cutting-edge methods like 3-D printing to rebuild faces.
“I want to live,” said Nelya Leonidova. “For my children, for the life that was stolen but not lost. I want to find peace in the pieces left to me.”
Recovery is grueling, with wounds that impair eating, speaking and even the sense of self.
Patients depend on doctors to heal their physical wounds, and on the support of family to move forward.
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Rebuilding Faces, Lives and a Sense of Self in Ukraine
The face is the window to identity and emotion. To have it disfigured is not merely to be wounded, but to be unmoored from one’s own sense of self.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many Ukrainians have suffered grievous facial injuries, a brutal testament to the power of modern weaponry and the vulnerability of the flesh.
“A soldier loses a leg, and society calls him a hero,” said Dr. Andrii Kopchak, the head of the department of maxillofacial surgery at Bogomolets National Medical University in Kyiv. “But lose your face? You become a ghost.”
Surgeons have made significant strides in tending to Ukraine’s wounded, particularly through the use of 3-D printing. By creating patient-specific implants and surgical guides, the technology allows for more precise reconstruction of shattered jaws, cheekbones and eye sockets — restoring not just function, but the very contours of someone’s identity.
