Rebecca Rommen
Rebekah Maciorowski, a US citizen who has been a combat nurse in Ukraine since 2022, says the latest Russian advances are battering her comrades on the front lines, and they desperately need the weapons denied to them by the deadlock in US Congress.
Maciorowski told Business Insider: "For me, it's been especially hard to see my guys powerless to do anything but just engage in trench warfare because of the lack of artillery and ammunition."
From Russia's full-scale invasion to the fall of Avdiivka
Maciorowski, 30, arrived in Ukraine from Denver weeks after the war began in 2022.
"When I saw what was happening during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I felt like I didn't want to be a bystander who stood by and said, "Oh, my gosh, someone should help," but didn't do anything," she told BI in November.
Maciorowski often works under fire and has helped evacuate over 1,000 wounded soldiers, and, inevitably, she has also seen many men die.
Since November, Maciorowski said the situation for the troops has become "much more critical" as ammunition and shell shortages have become more acute.
Recently, Maciorowski helped evacuate Ukrainian soldiers from Avdiivka, which fell to Russia in February, having first arrived in the strategic city in October 2022.
By the end, the battle for Avdiivka became "more of a numbers game," she said. "Russia had way more resources, way more artillery, way more drones, way more troops."
Members of Ukraine's National Guard Omega Special Purpose fire an SPG-9 anti-tank grenade launcher toward Russian troops in the front line town of Avdiivka.
Gridlocked US aid
Before Russia's capture of the Donetsk city, the White House had warned that Ukraine would lose Avdiivka if the GOP kept blocking the $60 billion military aid package the Biden administration had prepared.
A recent report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that delays in US military assistance have led to ammunition shortages for Ukrainian forces, potentially weakening the front lines pressured by slow, grinding Russian advances.
This week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed that Ukraine needs increased support from its Western allies.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gives a press conference during a NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, 2021.
"The Ukrainians are not running out of courage; they are running out of ammunition," he said in a press conference.
"Every day of delay has real consequences on the battlefield in Ukraine," said Stoltenberg, echoing Maciorowski's firsthand experience.
Maciorowski said that Western allies seem to be forgetting the daily reality of the war, particularly in the US, which she's "so ashamed of right now." When they forget, Ukraine suffers, she added.
Maciorowski said that some US politicians' attitude toward the war in Ukraine feels "almost dismissive."
She said her soldiers feel "sadly resigned to the fact that help, as promised from the US, is not going to be delivered in a timely manner or in the way that it's supposed to be delivered."
As the big weapons package for Ukraine remains entangled in a political deadlock in Congress, the Biden administration this week managed to allocate $300 million in military aid for Ukraine.
The new supply includes HIMARS, artillery rounds, and armor systems, marking the first security assistance announced by the Department of Defense for Ukraine since December.
"This is a politician issue," Maciorowski said, stressing that she still feels supported by people in the US.
"I still have Americans who write me and help from the US," said Maciorowski, who buys trauma gear, generators, and medical supplies for front-line medical stabilization points through donations to her "Buy Me a Coffee" portal.
Maciorowski wants to help bridge the communication gap with US politicians.
"I would encourage representatives to reach out to me. I have open Twitter, they can slide right into those DMs. I would love to correspond directly with any American Congresspeople interested in the real situation," she said.
Tea-making rituals
"I'm tired. Every single day, everywhere I go, I see NEW destruction of the places I love, in the villages I traverse daily," she posted two weeks after Avdiivka fell.
On the same day, she paid tribute to her soldiers, writing: "The one thing that keeps me going, that keeps me motivated, that keeps me sane, is the steadfast bravery and fortitude of my soldiers. If they can continue, so can I!"
A Ukrainian soldier digs a trench near Bakhmut, Ukraine, in October 2023.
She remains steadfast in her commitment to Ukrainians despite brushes with death. She recalled an incident where Russian troops were "about 800 meters away and coming for us," but Ukrainian tanks rescued her and her fellow soldiers in the nick of time.
As the war in her adopted country rages on, Maciorowski finds solace in the small things, such as days spent cooped up in a dugout with Ukrainian soldiers where the ritual of tea-making on a gas stove would help them briefly forget the horror of war.
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