Vladyslav’s patience ran out. Six months have passed since the 29-year-old was hospitalized in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. According to Al Jazeera, his legs are immobilized, he can barely move his arms and he is seething with frustration at not being able to return to the front.

“Imagine, I’ve been here since March and I can’t walk,” he says irritably.

Affectionate and full of jokes, Vladyslav is imposing, even when lying on the couch during a physical therapy session.

“Everyone thinks that it is possible to prepare for war, but it is not so. You just do it. You just act,” he says.

A tankman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 2009, Vladyslav was seriously wounded on March 2 in Chernihiv in the north of Ukraine. “They failed to capture Chernihiv, so they tried to completely destroy it,” he says.

The missile fell near the tank he was in and caused a serious head injury. The doctors, who rushed to save his life, removed several fragments from his head.

As he speaks, Vladyslav’s left leg moves intermittently – a grim reminder of the serious damage to his nervous system. Later, he was transferred to the Lviv hospital, where a large number of military personnel are treated.

“Separatists confiscated our apartment”

His desire to reunite with his comrades is tinged with anger. Born and raised in Luhansk. When pro-Russian unrest spread to Donbas in 2014, his family fled northwest to Severodonetsk. “Separatists took our apartment,” he says.

When the full-scale invasion of Russia began on February 24, his family was forced to leave Severodonetsk and take refuge in the capital, Kyiv.

After months of hospitalization, Vladyslav says that it is unthinkable for him to give up the war. “Of course I want to go back to the front line,” he says with a laugh. “I’m a very good tank driver. Some people decide to leave the country and stop defending it, but I wasn’t raised that way,” he adds.

Currently, the hospital cannot determine how long Vladyslav’s recovery will last and whether the mobility of his legs will be restored.

Race to heal the soldiers

As the war approaches its seventh month, the experiences of wounded soldiers like Władysław paint a picture of the brutal consequences of prolonged fighting, with injuries and deaths rising rapidly amid widespread exhaustion.

In the relative safety of Western Ukraine, it is difficult for hospitals to treat hundreds of soldiers like Vladyslav. Many of these soldiers have been seriously injured and are not physically or mentally ready to return to the front line, but they feel a great need to do so.

Medical personnel rush to treat those who, once deemed fit, return to the front lines. (full on Al Jazeera)

At the beginning of the war, Ukraine was outnumbered 7 times.

But thanks to a strong reinforcement of weapons and equipment provided by 28 countries, starting in September his army launched an unexpectedly swift counteroffensive, recapturing key cities in the east and south of the country, including Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

However, experts predict that the war will drag on until next year.

According to the latest official figures from Ukraine, 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died in combat since the start of the war, and government estimates from early June indicate 100 to 200 soldiers killed and another 500 wounded each day in the fighting.