‘Pure terror’: COVID-19 on the front lines of Ukraine’s war

In Europe’s only active war zone, closed borders and a lack of resources are impeding the fight against COVID-19.

Paediatrician Victoria Koryak meets us on the second floor of the district hospital in the town of Stanytsia Luhanska. Divided into two parts – one under Ukrainian control and the other part of the pro-Russian separatist Luhansk People’s Republic – the town in the Donbas region is on the front line of the war in eastern Ukraine. Koryak wears sky-blue scrubs with floral embroidery, her ash-blonde hair gathered under a cap. She stands near the entrance to the hospital’s “red zone”, the area where coronavirus patients are treated. “I won’t go in there again. I’ve already been in today. My hair stands on end when I think about going back,” says the 55-year-old, passing one hand over the other as if rubbing away goosebumps. She confesses that she asks a nurse to inject her with a sedative after each visit.