In One Image Vintage of War By Nanna Heitmann and Eric Nagourney
Russian forces in a bloody battle to occupy eastern Ukraine set up a field hospital for wounded fighters in an old winery.
This soldier had just arrived. Medics quickly transferred him to a stretcher, cutting off his clothes to assess his wounds and start an IV.
Before the war, tourists would wander through tunnels decorated with carvings and taste the sparkling wine that Bakhmut was known for.
Now the Russians, who rarely see sunlight, take what cheer they can from other decorations, like the tree still there after Christmas had passed.
The cards and drawings on the wall were sent to recuperating soldiers by children back home.
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Vintage of War
Bacchus once reigned here. Now Mars does.
Tunnels have long wended through the earth beneath Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine. Until the 1960s, they were used by the mining industry. The vintners came next. Then, after Russia invaded the country in 2022, the tunnels were repurposed yet again.
As fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces raged, Moscow set up a stabilization point, bringing in medical equipment and installing it near racks still bearing tens of thousands of bottles of wine.
Though Russian forces captured the city of Bakhmut last year, the fighting around it can still be pitched. Many of the soldiers who end up at the field hospital were hurt in Klishchiivka, a bloody frontline point on the outskirts of the city.
The room above, near the entrance to an old decanting chamber that is still decorated with Romanesque statuary, once echoed with the sounds of festivity. Now it is the sounds of pain and lament.
The days underground are long. Venturing outside, where drones are often on the prowl, is too risky. A medic on the night shift photographed above was killed by one a month earlier.
This is what we know about the patient:
He is Russian. He did not die. He was transferred to a hospital farther from the front line — but not before an arm and a leg were amputated.
