Dmytro Skomoroh is a council official turned volunteer soldier for whom this war has dealt a cruel blow.
The 50-year-old arrives on crutches at the “Without Limits” clinic in Kyiv wearing his camouflage jacket emblazoned with his nickname: “Ice Demon”.
Dmytro is missing the lower part of his left leg after stepping on a landmine while rushing to rescue a fellow soldier who had also been blown up in Kreminna, in the Donbas, in December.
There are only nine of these prosthetic clinics across the country, but in this one in Kyiv, Dmytro’s custom mould is being made by 68-year-old Volodymyr Federov.
He has been making prosthetics for 43 years – first for the Soviet army injured in Afghanistan. But he says he’s never crafted as many as he has these past few months.
The claims from the clinic are that 60% of amputee soldiers in Ukraine are making it back to fight again.
There are photos and videos shared with us of soldiers in trenches posing happily with their new limbs.
Looking at the variety of feet and knees scattered around the clinic it’s hard to imagine them soon confronting Vladimir Putin’s troops.
Dmytro’s sacrifice has been a painful one, but one that he says is worth it.
‘No regrets’
He said: “There is not a single day, not a single minute that I regret volunteering to serve. Yes, it was dangerous, but I will never regret my decision.”
For him, his country is like his family, and he wants to join the fighting forces as soon as he can.
His wife Nataliia is alongside him, holding his hand as he tells us he’ll return “even if I just have to carry food for the boys, cook for them, and do their laundry”.
She supports him: “This is his decision. Someone has to do it. That is how it should be if God needs him to go to war.”
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Enlisted soldiers are here, too.
Some are Ukrainian special forces continuing their rehabilitation – Mariia Yeremenko is the physiotherapist encouraging them to take just one more step through the pain.
She is encouraging but firm with these men who have seen unspeakable horror.
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We see a man with mortar injuries from Bakhmut, anxious not about his injuries but about returning to the frontline.
More soldiers arrive, some on crutches and some in wheelchairs – all missing a crucial limb and all eager to push forward in their recuperation.
Another Dmytro – nickname “Shark” – has served in the army since 2013, graduating from the country’s military academy.
He is 27 and has nothing below his right thigh.
On 6 September, he was injured in Kharkiv defending the city when an artillery shell exploded next to him.
His fiancee Anhelina and his parents were in Dnipro, but moved across the country to be by his side when he was transferred to a military hospital in Kyiv. He simply says: “I did my duty.”
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Nataliia is recording every tentative step her husband takes wearing his new prosthesis on her phone.
He stands up straight, proud and determined at the start of his long road to recovery, which begins with a couple of metres in a straight line supported by wooden railings.
We ask Ice Demon one last question – can Ukraine win?
“Not just can win, it will win. There are no other options here.”
