12 January 2023 , 19:12
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A Ukrainian soldier who had an unexploded grenade lodged in his chest has undergone successful surgery to have it removed, senior officials in Kyiv have said.
Military surgeons removed the weapon from just under the heart of the injured soldier, while two sappers - royal engineer soldiers - supervised the safety of both the medical staff and the patient.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defence, uploaded an image showing an X-ray of the object inside the body of the soldier, who was reportedly 28 years old.
It was paired with an image showing a surgeon with bloodied gloves, holding the explosive after the surgery was performed.
“Military doctors conducted an operation to remove a VOG grenade, which did not break, from the body of the soldier,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
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A surgeon holding the explosive after the surgery was performed (Hanna Maliar/Facebook)"One of the most experienced surgeons of the Armed Forces, Major General Andrew Willow, operated without electrocoagulation, as the grenade could detonate at any time.
"The operational intervention was successful and the injured soldier was sent to further rehabilitation and recovery."
Ukraine’s internal affairs ministerial adviser Anton Gerashchenko said on Telegram on Thursday that the case would "go down in medical textbooks".
"The unexploded part of the grenade was taken from under the heart. The grenade did not explode but remained explosive,’ he said.
"There have never been such operations in the practice of our doctors. Similar was during the war in Afghanistan.
"About the current patient, I can say that he was born in 1994, now he is sent for rehabilitation, his condition is stable. I think this case will go down in medical textbooks."
A post on a Facebook page for the Armed Forces of Ukraine described the discovery of the grenade as a "shock".
"The operation was carried out by one of the most experienced surgeons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine - Andrew Willow," it said,
It said the operation was carried out "without electrocoagulation", as the grenade could detonate at "any time".