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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Russian military hospitals are overflowing with the wounded: civilian hospitals across the country have begun converting their wards to serve the needs of the army on a large scale. The wounded are treated for free and without queues, while their wards are made as closed as possible—with restricted access and a special secrecy regime.
The Russian Defense Ministry’s military hospitals ended up overcrowded due to the large number of wounded from the front, so civilian hospitals nationwide began repurposing their departments for the army’s needs. The occupiers are treated for free and without queues, and the departments for them are made maximally closed—with limited access and a special secrecy regime.
This was reported by Informator.
According to Ot Tak, medical workers from Saint Petersburg, Yaroslavl region, and Siberia told The Moscow Times. At the end of May 2023 year, the Russian authorities promised to hand over nearly 5 thousand beds to the Ministry of Defense in 27 civilian hospitals in 11 regions, including Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, and Sevastopol. At the same time, this decision was not officially announced, and the full list of hospitals remains unknown.
In Saint Petersburg’s N.V. Danilets Institute of Emergency Medical Care, the first wounded arrived in June 2024 year. According to a hospital employee, two closed wards for war participants were opened on the site of intensive care and shock therapy. Entry was possible only with magnetic passes, and staff were isolated from other workers. The wards were designed for approximately 60–70 beds. A similar scheme operates since 2024 in one hospital in the Yaroslavl region.
In Siberia, documentation for such patients is also classified: instead of a first and last name, the medical histories list only a number, said a trauma surgeon at one city hospital. Meanwhile at the Kirov Military Medical Academy in Saint Petersburg, the department designed for 40 patients accepts up to 86. After the start of the full-scale war, additional beds began to be installed in corridors, and mattresses are used in the wards.
According to Ot Tak, Russia operates at least 58,3 thousand beds in military medical facilities, where nearly a million wounded could be treated each year. Yet even this capacity is not enough.
Involving civilian hospitals in military needs also complicates access to medical care for other patients. They can receive emergency care, but planned treatment becomes problematic.
“And in living queues people sit waiting for help, suffer, and suddenly someone goes in out of turn. This, of course, provokes irritation and social tension,” a hospital source told the publication.
Hospital, photo: Rossiyskaya Gazeta (russia media)
Hospital staff complain of conflicts, drunkenness, and thefts
The appearance of wounded military personnel in civilian hospitals is accompanied by conflicts, drunkenness, thefts, and even shootings. In April at Alexander Hospital in Saint Petersburg, a conflict between two participants in the war ended in gunfire, and in September one serviceman struck another in the abdomen with a knife at the Peter the Great hospital.
“They drink, they steal. In our ward a TV was stolen, they went and sold it, they got drunk,” a local doctor said.
The influx of wounded is linked to the large-scale losses of the Russian army. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, by June this year Russia’s total losses in the full-scale war reached 1,4 million people. At least 450 thousand of them were killed, the rest suffered severe injuries or went missing.
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