Investing in decent tourniquets is money well spent. The medics I speak to say that two-thirds of Ukrainian soldiers die from blood loss. I meet Bilka, 24, a medic in the 243rd Territorial Defence Battalion, who has just returned from Bakhmut. She explains what happens to the injured person on the front line: ‘You have to drag a person with your hands approximately three to five kilometres. You can’t drive there even in armoured vehicles because of the heavy shellings and mines.’
Medics, she says, try to avoid using the official first aid supplies issued to them, because of the admin that is involved. Each component of a government-issued medical kit must be accounted for, including equipment that is obviously sub-standard. ‘If a drug has expired, the write-off procedure is so difficult that it is easier to record that it has been destroyed by fire,’ she says.