The Angel of Donbas

Katie Livingstone meets a remarkable young woman bringing lifesaving medical treatment to the frontline of the war in Ukraine. With photos by Paul Conroy

Seema kneeled to eye level and took the old lady’s hand in her own to calm her; the pair bathed in a single beam of light that illuminated Seema’s strawberry blond hair – poking out from underneath her ballistic helmet like a halo – amidst the darkness and despair of the woman’s cluttered home.

The woman, Alexandra, was having a heart attack. Seema had to immediately convince her to take medicine to slow the onset of symptoms and then to head to the nearest hospital for proper care— a move the woman and her husband had avoided for 19 months as their front-line town, Sivers'k, came under constant shelling from nearby Russian forces. Alexandra was disoriented and fearful, unable to stop crying and nervously laughing before bursting into tears again.