The U.S. army is now providing medical care to wounded Ukrainian troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Heart in Germany, the premier American hospital in Europe, Navy Instances has realized.
Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin on June 29 signed steering permitting Landstuhl to deal with as much as 18 Ukrainian service members at a time, in response to a Joint Employees memo that Navy Instances obtained on Monday.
News shops together with CNN and the Washington Submit independently confirmed the contents of the memo. Spokespeople for the Workplace of the Secretary of Protection didn’t reply to a request for remark from Navy Instances on Tuesday.
“Landstuhl Regional Medical Heart has not supplied any medical remedy to Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel,” U.S. European Command spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Russ Wolfkiel mentioned in an electronic mail Wednesday. “Landstuhl Regional Medical Heart stays postured and able to assist U.S. armed forces, NATO member nations and others as directed.”
Austin first proposed the thought in Could and put it in writing a few month later, the memo mentioned. Members of Congress in April urged the Pentagon to take that step to alleviate a number of the workload on European hospitals.
Landstuhl turned generally known as the medical hub for U.S. and allied troops who had been wounded all through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the Pentagon doesn’t usually enable combatants from a battle by which the U.S. shouldn’t be instantly concerned to entry American medical services.
Landstuhl is the most important American-run hospital exterior of the U.S. and the one such facility in Europe that gives a full vary of specialty care. It serves greater than 205,000 U.S. troops and their households in Europe, plus troops from greater than 50 overseas militaries who had been harm whereas serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, Europe, Africa and the remainder of the Center East and Southwest Asia.
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The Pentagon does make exceptions for individuals apart from U.S. and allied troops to hunt care at Landstuhl. These conditions embrace pure disasters or when one other nation can’t present the lifesaving care somebody wants, mentioned Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of protection for European and NATO coverage who’s now on the Heart for a New American Safety.
Treating wounded Ukrainians would bolster the underdog army’s morale because it begins its sixth month of battle with Russia, he informed Navy Instances on Tuesday.
“If you realize that you just’re going to probably be taken to Landstuhl or someplace else to be taken care of when you’re wounded, that provides you much more confidence in battle. … It’s an enormous deal for folk on the bottom,” he mentioned.
It’s unclear how wounded Ukrainians would journey tons of of miles to western Germany. Townsend believes they may return to Germany on the identical trains which are bringing fight materiel into Poland earlier than they cross the border into Ukraine. They might even be medically evacuated from a neighboring nation.
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“A prepare fitted out as a hospital would carry sufferers over that wouldn’t essentially want one thing instantly, however would possibly want cosmetic surgery to their face, or [have] lacking limbs, or [need] some sort of intricate surgical procedure to take away shrapnel,” Townsend mentioned.
Greater than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been wounded or killed in assaults following Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. That’s about as many prior to now 5 months as had been tallied within the 5 years after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, the United Nations mentioned on Monday. About 5,200 of them have died since February.
The federal government in Kyiv mentioned in June that 100 to 200 Ukrainian troops had been dying every day.
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Landstuhl could agree to herald greater than 18 sufferers as they get a really feel for a way treating Ukrainians will stretch their present capability, Townsend added.
Townsend doubts that therapeutic Ukrainians will do a lot to additional provoke Russia, which has warned the U.S. and its allies in opposition to persevering with to supply weapons to Ukraine. However he praised the choice to supply medical assist as a step towards discovering methods for extra individuals throughout the continent to pitch in.
“Our instance is vital. I believe if the European nations, allies or not, see what we’re doing, they could open up their hospitals as nicely,” he mentioned.
U.S. involvement within the battle has steadily elevated since Russia invaded. The Biden administration has despatched $8 billion in safety help to Ukraine, although the nation has sought longer vary weapons that the U.S. has to date not permitted.
Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., an Army Nationwide Guard officer, has additionally argued in current days that the U.S. must also ship advisers to the war-torn nation, a transfer Moscow could view as a big escalation.
”I don’t assume anyone is advocating for any [American] army on the entrance line, however serving to with logistics, planning these operations, integrating the intelligence is extremely vital proper now,” Waltz informed Fox News.
Rachel Cohen joined Air Power Instances as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Power Journal, Inside Protection, Inside Well being Coverage, the Frederick News-Submit (Md.), the Washington Submit, and others.
