Ukrainian soldier Mykola Kasiuk is hoping to regain some vision after a battlefield injury left him nearly blind KYIV, Ukraine -- Mykola Kasiuk’s world plunged into near-total darkness when a land mine exploded on the battlefield with Russian troops. The Ukrainian soldier lost an eye. He clings to hope that one day he will see with the other because he can still discern faint traces of light.
After two years and numerous operations, Kasiuk placed that hope with a visiting team of U.S. surgeons. Kasiuk crossed himself as he lay on a hospital bed before a recent surgery in Kyiv, praying for one thing: “I want to be able to see my children again.” Russia’s war in Ukraine has left soldiers and civilians with devastating eye and facial injuries. But specialists who can repair the damage are scarce.
Before the 2022 invasion, ophthalmic expertise in many Ukrainian hospitals rarely extended beyond basic procedures such as cataract surgery. The U.S. surgeons treat complex cases while training Ukrainian doctors in oculoplastic surgery, from rebuilding damaged eye sockets to fitting artificial eyes. Local doctors had told Kasiuk that his vision was lost and recommended removing his remaining eye.
Still, he was handed a rifle and sent into some of the fiercest fighting in eastern Ukraine. His last visual memories are consumed by the war's brutality in the Donetsk region: fellow soldiers killed, houses reduced to rubble, dogs wandering through ruins. He could hear Russian soldiers’ voices nearby.
The smell of death, he said, was everywhere. Kasiuk was walking with fellow soldiers on April 16, 2024, when he stepped onto something and fell. His commanders later told his wife, Tetyana, that he stepped on the mine.
He was placed in an evacuation vehicle that came under fire. Almost everyone in the vehicle was killed. At a hospital, Tetyana saw a swollen man covered in shrapnel wounds, his face wrapped in bandages, his teeth shattered.
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