A Ukrainian soldier has survived extensive surgery after surgeons managed to remove an unexploded grenade from his body.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, shared the story on her Facebook page on Monday, showing the surgeon and the X-ray.
“It’s a shock, nice. Not every wound in the heart area is fatal,” she said in her post, according to a Google translation.
“Military doctors performed an operation to remove a VOG shell that did not shatter from the soldiers’ bodies.
X-ray of a Ukrainian soldier who had an unexploded grenade in his chest. Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Maliar shared the story on her Facebook page after surgeons successfully removed it. Hannah Maliar
“[The grenade] was removed in the presence of two sappers who ensured the safety of the medical staff.
“The operation was performed by one of the most experienced surgeons in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Andrew Willow.
“[It was done] without electrocoagulation, since the grenade could explode at any time.
“The surgical procedure was successful and the injured soldier was sent for further rehabilitation and recovery.”
It is not clear when or how the soldier got the grenade stuck in his chest.
Fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops rages on with no sign of slowing down. There were reports of Russian advances in the salt mining town of Soledar in Ukraine.
But Russian forces have yet to fully capture the city, according to the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops took the city on Tuesday.
“Wagner units took control of the entire Soledar area […] No units other than Wagner PMC [private military company] Fighters participated in the storming of Soledar,” Prigozhin said in an audio message released Tuesday by his company Concord.
In a follow-up message on Wednesday, he said: “I would like to confirm once again the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar by units of the Ukrainian army. Civilians were withdrawn, Ukrainian units that did not want to surrender were destroyed,” he said through his Concord press service.
“About 500 people were killed. The whole city is littered with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers.”
The ISW noted that Russian sources said that with the fall of Soledar, Moscow forces could go further to capture Bakhmut, an area that has seen some of the most intense fighting.
However, the think tank argued that the idea of the “imminent capture of Bakhmut” and the “collapse of Ukrainian defense lines” “are disconnected from the current operational reality in the Bakhmut area, where Russian forces are still far from closing Ukrainian ground communications lines interrupt (GLOCs) needed to encircle Bakhmut.”
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Foreign Ministry for comment.