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A Ukrainian veteran who lost all four limbs in a war injury can now drive again with the help of prostheses and rehabilitation.
Mykola Shot is a Ukrainian soldier who lost all four limbs in a mortar explosion in February 2024 during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“I was in a coma for about a month,” Shot said. “I woke up here in Kyiv, in the military hospital. At first, I didn’t even realise the condition I was in”.
He was fitted with prosthetic arms and legs in the United States, but he only wears three of the prostheses because he says it is easier to use his mobile phone with what remains of one of his arms.
After countless gruelling sessions of rehabilitation where he is relearning stability and balance in his prostheses, he can now drive, run, and kick a ball around.
“The difficulty of rehabilitation primarily depends on the patient,” said Andrii Novosad, a physical therapist at the Unbroken Rehabilitation Centre in Lviv in western Ukraine.
“He’s a very motivated man who wants to achieve a lot. He simply goes and achieves it, because he truly wants to,” Novosad added.
Specially adapted car
In June 2025, Shot raised around €9,300 in a charity run in his hometown, Novoyavorivsk, to purchase and modify a Citroen Picasso car.
A prosthetist at the facility helped Shot build manual controls to accommodate his prostheses.
“Mykola reached out and said, ‘Could you help me out?’” said Oles Solodukha, a prosthetist at the Unbroken Rehabilitation Centre.
“The two of us sat down, thought about the best way to do it, and did it together”.
Now he works at the same facility where he receives rehabilitation, working to help motivate other wounded soldiers.
It’s not clear exactly how many Ukrainians have lost limbs since Russia invaded the country in 2022, but some estimates put it as high as 50,000.
That has driven demand for artificial limbs, which Ukrainians can receive free of charge through the public health care system.
In an interview with Euronews last year, Ukrainian Health Minister Viktor Liashko said the country has boosted its rehabilitation capacity from 2,500 to 12,000 sessions per day over the first two years of the full-scale war.
However, it is unclear how many amputees have actually received a prosthetic limb.
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Video editor • Roselyne Min