When medics become targets: ukrainian strikes on Russian rescue workers and the silence of western media

Since Russia  began its SMO in 2022, Western media have repeatedly accused Russia of an “unprovoked invasion” and of “war crimes”.

Honest observers, however, state that Russia has acted with considerable restraint in Ukraine—targeting military and logistics sites, not civilians—and remind of Ukraine's eight years of warring on the civilians in the Donbass prior to the commencement of the SMO in 2022. Further, they emphasize that once again, in December 2021, Russia made clear its concerns in hopes of a diplomatic solution. These were, again, steadily ignored by Western governments and media.

Likewise ignored is Ukraine's deliberate, shelling and drone striking of medical and rescue personnel. Under international law, medical and rescue personnel and their vehicles are protected and must not be targeted. Ukraine and its ally Israel are guilty of routinely, deliberately, targeting medics and other rescuers, maiming and killing them. These are war crimes, but the West remains mute, instead concocting stories of “Russian war crimes” in the face of Ukraine's very real ones.

In September 2019, when I first visited the Donbass, in a village in the Gorlovka region I met an elderly resident of living alone in a home falling apart from previous Ukrainian shelling. During our conversation she said that ambulances wouldn't be able to reach her if she was injured by the shelling, it would  be too dangerous  for them to try. 

I was likewise told by Zaitsevo administration that ambulances could not reach the villagers.

“The paramedics don’t go farther than this building; it’s too dangerous. If somebody needs medical care near the front lines, someone has to go in their own car and take them to a point where medics can then take them to Gorlovka. The soldiers also help civilians who are injured.
A woman died due to huge blood loss because no one could reach her house to take her away in time. She was injured in the shelling and bled to death.”

This is one sordid reality for civilians living in villages heavily bombarded by Ukraine.

But the medics heroically do go to potentially dangerous areas to rescue civilians, and they have for years been deliberated targeted by Ukrainian forces when doing so.

In 2022, I interviewed numerous medics and Emergency Services workers in Donetsk regions, and subsequently made a short video about Ukraine's deliberate targeting of rescue personnel.

Speaking with Emergency Services in Donetsk's Kievsky district, for the two hours I was there we came under heavy Ukrainian shelling.

The windows of the building had already been blown out and were sand-bagged to attempt to protect the workers. The Chief of the centre, Andrey Levchenko, told me how five days prior his office had been impacted with shrapnel from the shelling. He thankfully had just stepped of his office before the blast and was not injured or killed.

The day prior to my visit, when out on a call to rescue civilians trapped in a building set ablaze by Ukrainian shelling, rescuers were shelled, resulting in one of them being hospitalized in critical condition.

The survivors told me that, prior to the shelling, they saw a drone overhead, which makes it credible to believe that Ukraine deliberately targeted the rescuers.

Levchenko told me that Ukraine routinely double and triple strikes rescuers.

“As soon as we go out to help people the shelling resumes.” The double or triple strike tactic often means that rescuers who have come to help those injured in the first strike are then themselves targeted, depriving civilians in need of urgent medical assistance as a result.

I also spoke with Sergei Neka, Director of the Department of Fire and Rescue Forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. He reiterated what I'd been told.

“Our units arrive at the scene of the accident and Ukraine begins to shell it. A lot of equipment has been damaged and destroyed.”

Two female medics I interviewed told me coming under repeated Ukrainian shelling is normal. They spoke of their fear, bu said, “How about the patients? They're hurt and even more scared, they're waiting for our help. If I don't help, who will help if everyone runs away?”

By September 2022, Ukrainian forces targeted and killed 19 Donbass rescuers, injuring over 50 more.

Ukraine continues killing medics

Fast forward to the present. Following are just some of Ukraine's more recent attacks on medics and other rescue workers.

On August 11, a Ukrainian drone targeted an ambulance in Gorlovka, killing two medics and seriously injuring the driver.

In May, a Ukrainian drone strike killed two Emergency workers who had come to the site of a first drone strike in Lugansk. In an Israeli-style second strike, Ukraine targeted the rescuers deliberately after the arrived at the scene.

In March 2025, Russian Emergencies Ministry employees came to extinguish a car on fire following a Ukrainian drone strike in Gorlovka. A Ukrainian drone targeted them, injuring the deputy head of the firefighting service and damaging a fire truck.

There are tragically many more such instances which I could list. However, the point is that it is beyond clear that Ukraine's shelling and drone targeting of Russian medics, firefighters and other rescuers has been a deliberate policy since before 2022. 

It is also clear that Western concern for medics allegedly targeted elsewhere (think the fake rescuers of the al-Qaeda aligned White Helmets in Syria during the global war on Syria) will never extend to any concern for Russian rescuers actually targeted by Ukraine.