Cult of TQs in the Armed Forces has led to 75 thousand unnecessary amputations – The Telegraph
5 August 2025 15:48
The cult of turnstiles in the Armed Forces of Ukraine leads to tens of thousands of unnecessary amputations and deaths among the military. This is stated in an article by the British newspaper The Telegraph, which cites the conclusions of leading military surgeons, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to Captain Rom Stevens, a former senior medical officer in the US Navy, about 100,000 amputations have been performed on Ukrainian soldiers since the beginning of the full-scale invasion . Up to 75,000 of them were caused by the improper use of turnstiles, the newspaper writes.
According to an expert quoted by The Telegraph, tourniquets are often left on limbs for days, even for wounds that could have been stopped by other methods.
“Then the patient has to have the limb amputated because the tissue is dying,”
– the article says.
The problem is that in Ukraine, unlike the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which gave rise to the cult of the turnstile, the evacuation of the wounded is carried out by land under a sky filled with drones. Very often, the safe timeframe for using turnstiles is exceeded. If a tourniquet remains on a limb for more than two hours, it can cause tissue death.
A particular problem is that Ukraine’s armed forces, which are largely composed of conscripts and civilian volunteers, often rely on medics with only a few weeks or even days of training who cannot distinguish between injuries that do or do not require tourniquets, the article says.
The Telegraph also reports a sharp rise in the number of young Ukrainians requiring dialysis. This is because when the tourniquet is removed after prolonged use, toxins from dead tissue fill the bloodstream and overload the kidneys.
A 2022 study by Ukrainian military vascular surgeon Dr. Vladyslav Yatsun, cited by the publication, found that only 24.6% of wounded arriving at the hospital with tourniquets had injuries that justified their use.
“In all other cases, it was more appropriate to use pressure bandages,”
– the study notes.
Capt. Stevens, who helped develop U.S. military guidelines for the use of tourniquets, now believes that their successful use in wars with rapid evacuation capabilities has led to a “cult-like” dependence on a tool that should be used with much more care.
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Are changes possible?
NATO has already expressed concern about the use of turnstiles in Ukraine, sending a team of medical and military experts last year to investigate the “unacceptably high rate of complications from the use of turnstiles,” The Telegraph reports.
Experts emphasize that turnstiles should be used only in three critical cases
- complete loss of a limb in combat;
- irreparable damage to the limb;
- uncontrolled arterial bleeding.
A growing group of medical professionals both in Ukraine and abroad are now pressuring the Ministry of Defense to move away from the U.S. TCCC (Tactical Combat Casualty Care) guidelines and develop its own medical guidelines. The time has come to take into account the Ukrainian context, as no current NATO army has been involved in a war of this kind in recent decades.
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