The soldier might be able to walk again after an American hospital helps him

NPR’s State of Ukraine: A Look at the 2016 Ukrainian War and the Response of Kiev to the Decay of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited leaders in London, Paris and Brussels, and reiterated his call for allies to send fighter jets.

The Institute for the study of war says that Russian forces attacked Ukrainian defensive lines and made marginal advances in Luhansk. Analysts at the Atlantic Council also said Russian forces are pushing to encircle Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova attended President Biden’s State of the Union speech, for the second year in a row, but the war in Ukraine received far less attention in the address this time.

According to the international team investigating the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, there’s “strong indications” that Russian President Putin gave the go-ahead to supply anti-aircraft weapons to the rebels.

You can read past recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

Vladyslav Orlov, an officer in Ukraine’s national guard, didn’t see what hit him, but the next thing he knew, the car he was traveling in last October was rolling over and in flames. He suspected Russian gun fire.

Orlov was pinned in the back of the vehicle and couldn’t get out of it because his feet had been crushed by the car. He and his team were in disbelief as they laid down in the grass, looking at the flames and figuring out their next steps.

Foot reconstruction in Ukraine is not just about war: Orlov, 40 years after his birth, hopes for his return to the US, and for his future

February 24st will mark a year since Russia started its war on the Ukrainians, and it is likely to be a brutal spring of fighting. Thousands of troops and more than 18,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations, have lost their lives, and millions have fled. The infrastructure has been destroyed by fighting and shelling.

In order to begin reconstruction of his right and left foot after arriving in the US in January, there have been two long procedures that have involved multiple specialists.

“(There are) a lot of wounded guys, you know?” Oranov told CNN. There is no free space for our doctors to work hard but they are working hard. (There’s not) enough medicine because it’s war,” he said in limited English.

The video caught the attention of US volunteers and eventually ended up in the hand of Gary Wasserson, a retired New York businessman who was already coordinating volunteer aid resources to the region.

Matkowsky, meanwhile, was working with the Ukrainian government to get permission for Orlov to leave, and helped to arrange transportation to Poland. From there, Wasserson was able to get them plane tickets to New York.

Dr. Duretti Fufa, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in limb reconstruction, is now helping care for Orlov. The hospital is paying for his surgical costs through their charity care program, a representative told CNN.

“The complexity comes from the fact that he had both soft tissue wounds as well as bone defects or missing bone from the blast injuries and the multiple fractures in each of the feet,” Fufa told CNN.

Fufa said that she warned him that it was too long a road to continue on and that it might not be worth it at some point.

He hopes he can walk again, but his hopes for his country are much bigger than that, he said.

He said that the deaths of women and children as a result of the fighting in Ukraine and Russia are not just about war. “It’s about human rights.”