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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Abigail O'Leary

Ukrainian medic smuggles harrowing bodycam footage from Mariupol in TAMPON

A Ukrainian medic smuggled harrowing bodycam footage from the besieged city of Mariupol inside a tampon.

Yuliia Paievska, 53, recorded footage of her team’s desperate efforts to save both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers in her humanitarian fight.

The brave paramedic used a tampon to smuggle a data card from the camera, which was given to her in 2021 for a Netflix documentary on the Invictus games, where she was meant to be competing.

Footage shows the bodies of injured fighters being hauled onto makeshift operating tables as clothes are cut from them.

Others are seen being bound in bandages with bloodied heads.

Yuliia Paievska, 53, recorded footage of her team’s desperate efforts to save both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers in her humanitarian fight (Ukraine Invictus Team)

At one point in the footage, Yuliia is seen treating an injured Russian solider who appears surprised at her kindness.

She instructs her colleagues to wrap an injured Russian soldier in a blanket.

Speaking to a colleague, she says: "Cover him because he is shaking," she says in the clip.

Yuliia is then heard calling an injured Russian "Sunshine" - a common nickname for the many soldiers she took care of.

In apparent confusion, he asks: "You're taking care of me?" before she responds: "We treat everyone equally."

Yuliia captured footage of her medical work on the ground in Mariupol (Ukraine Invictus Team)
The data card holding the footage was reportedly smuggled past 15 Russian checkpoints after being handed to journalists on March 15 (Ukraine Invictus Team)

The data card holding the footage was reportedly smuggled past 15 Russian checkpoints after being handed to journalists on March 15.

The following day, Yuliia and her driver were reportedly captured by Russian soldiers the following day and are said to be being held as prisoners.

Russia has claimed Yuliia is working for the nationalist Azov Battalion - a volunteer paramilitary militia fighting Russian forces in the Donbas War.

It comes as Vladimir Putin has been accused of meddling in everyday battlefield decisions which has lead to Russia 's failures in the Ukraine war, sources say.

Yuliia hid the data card in a tampon in order to get it smuggled through checkpoints (Ukraine Invictus Team)

The tyrant has been making tactical decisions usually reserved for officers in charge of as few as 700 troops - rather than a national armed force of over 150,000 soldiers.

Putin and his war-tactician crony General Valery Gerasimov are micromanaging battle decisions - which are unfitting for men of their position, a military source said.

The source said: “We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision-making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or a brigadier."

The source compared the situation to Amazon businessman Jeff Bezos, who "doesn't deliver your parcels" but "makes strategy decisions".

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