Trump-Zelensky clash leaves front-line U.S. medic reeling
Rebekah Maciorowski shared her feelings when Trump halted aid to the war-torn Ukraine. "You’re watching your friends and colleagues that you have taken care of potentially die in front of you while you’re listening to a leader of a democratic country say it doesn’t matter," says the medic.
Rebekah Maciorowski is from Colorado. She arrived in Ukraine in 2022. She is a trauma nurse who has previously worked in Central America, among other places. She volunteered to go to the front in Ukraine. She was supposed to stay for five weeks but has remained there ever since. As a volunteer, she organizes evacuations of civilians and soldiers and raises funds to supply her teams with necessary items.
A few months after Rebekah was officially accepted into the Ukrainian army as a medical officer, she witnessed a dispute between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump at the White House. Maciorowski shared her insights on the actions of the current U.S. president in an interview with "The Independent."
"It felt like the knife in the back"
Rebeckah is a medical officer in the 53rd Battalion. She is responsible for the health of hundreds of soldiers fighting on Ukraine’s worst and bloodiest frontlines. When the argument between the presidents of Ukraine and the United States occurred at the White House, Maciorowski and her team observed more hits from Russian drones.
- It was kind of traumatic. Honestly, it was kind of traumatic. It was unexpected, and it was, I don’t even have words. It was awful, yeah. It felt like a knife in the back - the American admits to "The Independent."
- We’re getting about 300g of water to them a day. Food, medicine, we drop it in from drones that were adapted to drop bombs because we cannot get the soldiers out overland - adds Rebeckah.
She emphasizes that soldiers in Ukraine manage to survive, though often with terrible injuries, precisely because of medicine packages dropped by drones, which her team helps bring to Ukraine.
