'I'll stay until we win': US nurse serving with Ukraine on frontline vows to keep treating troops until war ends
An American nurse, who left the US to help Ukrainian armed forces after Russia's invasion, has told Forces News she will not leave the frontline until "we win".
Rebekah Maciorowski said she watched from the hospital she was working in at the time as the invasion by Russian forces unfolded and wanted to help.
The medic responded to Ukraine's health ministry when it asked for help and assistance, arriving there last March.
Now, having been on the frontline evacuating and treating troops, as well as helping to train them, she told Forces News she can't leave the soldiers she has been fighting alongside.
"I can't leave them now, that's my family," Ms Maciorowski said. "We've been through everything together and for me to just give up and go home – they can't go home, this is their home, so I stay with them."
Ms Maciorowski also said she is "usually" the first American the troops have met.
"Americans and other foreigners like to camp out in semi-safe cities," she said.
"I've yet to meet another foreigner who's lived with the troops and stayed."
When asked why she has put herself in harm's way, Ms Maciorowski responded: "Maybe a better question would be why haven't others come to assist?
"Why am I the only one that I know of doing this?"
Ms Maciorowski also said Ukranian soldiers aren't properly equipped: "The tourniquets break. I've had patients die because of fake tourniquets and by the time I arrive on the scene they've already hemorrhaged out," she said.
"It's preventable death.
She also said there are no "quality controls" in Ukraine, referencing an article in the Kyiv Independent that stated Ukraine had bought no first aid kits in 2023.
"I can independently verify that, because I have replaced thousands and thousands of first aid kits," Ms Maciorowski said.
"One time, I got a big shipment of, I think it was like, 89 tourniquets and I took them to the village and I gave them to a specific unit and they were distributing them, and then a tank hit the house, killing several of my friends, wounding many of my soldiers and destroying the tourniquets.
"How do you say that to somebody? Like 'Oh, I'm so sorry, I need more tourniquets because a tank hit the house they were in'.
"That just sounds unbelievable. That is reality here. That is reality."
The UK Foreign Office continues to advise British nationals against all travel to Ukraine.
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