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The WHO Country Office in Ukraine, with support from the European Union (EU) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has donated an additional 33 ambulances to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to enable the provision of emergency medical care to patients during the war.

The handover of ambulances took place on 27March in Lviv, western Ukraine, at a ceremony held jointly with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, EU Humanitarian Aid and USAID. Participants included DrViktor Liashko, Minister of Health of Ukraine, DrJarno Habicht, WHO Representative in Ukraine, MrMaciej Popowski, Director General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, and MsTatiana Rastrigina, Senior Project Management Specialist at the USAID/Ukraine Health Office.

The donation includes 20 ambulances equipped with a stretcher and first aid equipment that are intended for the transportation of non-critical patients. A further 13 ambulances equipped withpatient ventilators, oxygen supply, medication bags and other equipment will allow the transportation of seriously injured patients to health facilities.

The ambulances will be distributed to hospitals and emergency medical centres throughout the entire country, with a particular focus on the eastern part of Ukraine.

The purpose of this donation is to further enhance the timeliness and quality of health services provided by national emergency medical services. This further strengthens the capacity of Ukraines health system to lead the activation and coordination of this response in the immediate aftermath of any emergency, explained DrHabicht during the ceremony.

The availability of ambulances is a priority to reduce mortality from emergency situations and mass casualty events. By providing these emergency vehicles, we pursue the goal of ensuring adequate conditions to provide urgent medical care and to further improve emergency response practices in Ukraine, he added.

Since 24February2022, a total of 56 ambulances have been donated to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine by WHO and its partners.

DrLiashko expressed, I want to thank our partners for their strong support. Despite all the odds, we work together to provide Ukrainians with high-quality, affordable and free medical help. Soon, we will send 33 ambulances to the regions where they are needed and will help our brave medics to save people's lives.

MrJanez Lenari, European Commissioner for Crisis Management, said, It is one of our top priorities to support the Ukrainian health-care system, which has come under extreme pressure since the start of the war. We are working with partners like WHO to ensure that medical professionals have the means and equipment to reach people in urgent need of medical assistance. These ambulances will save lives across the country, including in hard-to-reach areas.

USAID/Ukraine Mission Director MrJames Hope noted, These ambulances, co-funded by the United States and the European Union, will help Ukraines emergency workers respond to crises on the ground. It is just one example of how USAID assistance helps Ukraine meet urgent needs created by the war. We will continue partnering with the European Union, WHO and other partners to provide Ukraine with lifesaving support.

WHO has delivered more than 3000 metric tonnes of lifesaving medical supplies to Ukraine since the war began, including in hard-to-reach areas close to the front line. Deliveries have included power generators, ambulances, oxygen supplies for medical facilities, supplies for trauma and emergency surgeries, and medicines to help treat noncommunicable diseases and more.

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LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Britain and Poland will build two temporary villages in western and central Ukraine to provide housing for those forced from their homes by Russia's invasion, London said on Tuesday, pledging 10 million pounds ($12.3 million) in funding.

Almost 118,000 Ukrainians have been hosted by British families as part of the government's response to Russia's February 2022 invasion, but some are finding it increasingly difficult to get permanent housing.

Britain's government said the villages in Lviv in western Ukraine and Poltava in central Ukraine would be able to house more than 700 people, a fraction of the millions either displaced in Ukraine or who have fled the country.

"For the past year, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has continued to target civilian homes and infrastructure, with the Ukrainian people paying a heavy price," British foreign minister James Cleverly said in a statement.

"This new UK-Poland partnership will help bring light, heat and homes to those most in need."

($1 = 0.8149 pounds)

Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, Editing by Kylie MacLellan

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UK, Poland to build new temporary villages in Ukraine - Reuters

LONDON/KYIV, March 28 (Reuters) - The steady stream of wounded soldiers into a clinic for artificial limbs in Kyiv is a stark reminder of the human cost of Russia's war on Ukraine, where military casualties are a secret closely guarded by both sides.

Unrelenting artillery fire along a 1,000-km (600-mile) front line and Russia's frequent use of missiles across the country mean that shrapnel wounds are maiming people in Ukraine on a scale just beginning to emerge.

"Unfortunately, the number of patients has increased significantly," said Andrii Ovcharenko, who works with a team of medics and technicians at the "Without Limits" prosthetics clinic, one of almost 80 now operating in Ukraine.

Clinic owner Nagender Parashar's Kyiv-based company made about 7,000 prosthetic components in the second half of last year, equal to the total produced in 2021. "It's still not enough," he said.

Parashar has 25 specialists at the nine clinics he owns in Ukraine; the busiest - Kyiv and Lviv - would see 20 to 30 patients a month, but now it is three times that number and he says he needs up to 75 more specialists to cope.

Russia has poured extra troops and artillery into the fight this year and some analysts have compared the months of intense, inconclusive trench warfare in eastern Ukraine to World War One.

"There really is a shortage of prosthetists, because there are a huge number of people requiring prosthetic treatment coming in every day," Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko told Reuters in an interview.

"Now the priority is upper limbs, so those specialists who deal with this are overloaded."

On a recent morning, Ovcharenko's Kyiv clinic assessed two soldiers for artificial legs and adjusted the new limb of a third. A handful more came for rehabilitation exercises. Staff said a recent Russian missile attack on Kyiv had put others off.

Denys said he lost his left leg when a Russian missile landed 50 metres from his unit in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.

"My comrade behind the dugout received shrapnel wounds and bled to death," the 28-year-old told Reuters as he sat in a wheelchair, declining to give his full name.

He said it was a gift from God that he had survived and there was no sense in complaining. He planned to return to civilian life once he had recuperated. According to Ovcharenko, many amputee soldiers volunteer to return to the war.

Dmytro Zilko had a newly fitted artificial limb to replace his right leg, amputated after a shell landed nearby during fighting in a village close to the eastern town of Bakhmut - where the fiercest battles of the conflict still rage.

"They cut my leg off in Druzhkivka," the 22-year-old said, referring to a town west of Bakhmut. "This is my fourth exercise day. As soon as I stood on my prosthetic leg, I felt alive."

Germany's Ottobock - the world's biggest prosthetic equipment maker by market share - sold roughly twice as many foot prosthetics in the second half of 2022 as all of 2021, its CEO Oliver Jakobi told Reuters, attributing the rise to the war.

Before Russia's full-scale invasion 13 months ago, the ratio of lower limbs and upper limbs was about 9 to one, while it was now probably 50-50, he said.

Ukraine has around 300 prosthetists, technicians and apprentices, but only five can fit functional devices like hands and arms, said Antonina Kumka, founder of charity Protez Hub which works with 79 prosthetics clinics across the country, up from 65 in 2021.

Artificial limbs like elbows are in demand, she added, with some people having to wait up to six months to be fitted.

At least 100 patients had been fitted abroad, she said, noting that the practice is not ideal given patients need long-term follow-up.

Experts say Ukraine will need big investment in infrastructure and staff to deal with amputees needing help for years to come: a lower limb prosthetic can cost anywhere from $500 to as much as $70,000 for more sophisticated equipment.

The number of prostheses paid for by Ukraine's Ministry of Social Policy jumped more than 15% to 13,219 in 2022 from a year earlier, according to previously unreported ministry data.

Healing following amputation surgeries before new limbs can be fitted can take up to four months and there is another lag before the government makes a payment.

U.S. Army General Mark Milley estimated in November at least 100,000 Russian military casualties - killed or wounded, with "probably" the same for Ukraine. Some Western officials have suggested that number had doubled on the Russian side by February. Neither side gives updated figures.

Oleksandra Kazarian, CEO of the Ortonet association for prosthetic and orthopaedic enterprises in Ukraine, said the numbers treated by one company, Tellus, had risen 20% last year from nearly 600 a year earlier across three clinics. It expects another 30-40% rise in 2023.

It plans to expand, depending on how the war unfolds but is not sure where to open new clinics.

"Where's a safe place?" Kazarian said. "You never know."

Additional reporting and writing by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Josephine Mason and Philippa Fletcher

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Ukraine needs more prosthetics clinicians as war toll mounts - Reuters

Thomas Bach, the head of the International Olympic Committee, has today defended plans to get Russian and Belarusian athletes back into competitions as neutrals.

He claimed their participation "works" despite the war in Ukraine.

The IOC sanctioned Russia and Belarus after the 2022 invasion, but is now eager to see athletes have a chance to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

It has set out a pathway for these competitors to earn Olympic slots through Asian qualifying and has left it up to international federations to decide on organisation.

But Ukraine has since threatened to boycott the Paris 2024 Games should these athletes try to compete there, even as neutrals.

"Participation of athletes with Russian and Belarusian passports in international competitions works," Mr Bach said today.

"We see this almost every day in a number of sports, most prominently in tennis but also in cycling, in some table tennis competitions.

"We see it in ice hockey, handball, we see it in football and in other leagues in the United States but also in Europe and we also see it in other continents," he said.

"In none of these competition security incidents have been happening."

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Beijing has repeated its calls for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis following reports that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring Belarus, reports Nicola Smith.

Last year, the leaders of the five nuclear-weapon states released a joint statement, in which they affirmed that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought and stressed the importance of the avoidance of war between nuclear-weapon states and the reduction of strategic risks, said Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson on Monday.

Under the current circumstances, all sides need to focus on making diplomatic efforts towards a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine crisis and work together for de-escalation, she added.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, proposed a peace plan to end the crisis during a visit to Moscow last week, although it has been met with scepticism in the west as a possible stalling tactic to allow Russia to freeze the war and its territorial gains on its own terms.

Asked if the deployment of nuclear weapons in Belarus would complicate Chinas proposal, Ms Mao said Beijing was in talks with all sides and would continue to play a constructive role, urging the US to help create the conditions for peace talks rather than add fuel to the fire.

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