A fleet of armored vehicles inspired by the death of one Ukrainian soldier is being custom-built with donations from Romania.
This bus, photographed in a suburb of Kyiv on April 23, is one of several unique armor-plated vehicles that have been crowdfunded by Romanians and are now about to be sent to the fighting in Ukraine's east.
The vehicle once served as a public bus for the residents of Pila, in northern Poland. Now it is equipped as a mobile field hospital wrapped in steel and Kevlar armor.
It's intended to serve as a medical facility that can be positioned within a few kilometers of frontline positions.
The project is spearheaded by Radu Hossu, an activist from Brasov who grew a large social media following for reporting in his native Romanian language from the front lines in Ukraine.
Hossu says an armored, mobile hospital was first envisioned by a Ukrainian paramedic friend known by his military callsign Angel. "He had this idea for a long time," the Romanian says.
The driver's compartment of the armored bus
Many deaths in the Ukraine war happen during transport of badly wounded soldiers from frontline positions to hospitals that are often a long drive from the trenches. One of those deaths was Hossu's close friend, Oleg Gubal, who was killed in November 2022 while inside a vehicle that Hossu had bought with Romanian donations.
Oleg Gubal
"He died on the road from the front line to the nearest hospital. So if this [armored mobile hospital] had existed then, he would have had a chance of surviving," the Romanian says.
"He was my guardian angel when we were in the trenches," Hossu says of Gubal. "He would constantly put himself between me and danger. I always overslept, and he would wake me up and say, 'Come on, Radu, you have to go and eat now.' He was a really, really kind guy."
After the Ukrainian soldier's death, Hossu says he felt compelled to commemorate his friend. The armored bus complex will be named after the fallen Ukrainian soldier.
"I wanted to transform a tragedy into something good," Hossu says. "The reality is this: Gubal had a young daughter and a small boy. From November after he died, up until last Christmas, his son was writing letters to Santa Claus asking him to bring his father back home."
The Oleg Gubal armored hospital will be accompanied by this truck, which has an armored compartment at the rear for doctors and nurses to shower and sleep. The truck will be finished with the same forest-green paint job as the bus.
Hossu says the custom car company in Kyiv that is building the vehicles has not billed him for anything beyond the wages of the workers involved. "The owner has health issues that stop him from fighting, so he wants to help with this project as his contribution."
A Ukrainian-Romanian soldier who asked to be identified by his callsign Rum (above left) is the manager of the armored hospital project.
Hossu says the Oleg Gubal complex has cost a total of around 130,000 euros donated by Romanians, with most of the money spent on medical equipment and military-grade armor plating. Hossu claims the armor has not added significantly more weight to the vehicle than it would have carried when full of passengers in its previous life as a public bus.
At the same workshop where the other armored vehicles were made, work is currently under way on this extraction vehicle designed to reach frontline positions to transport wounded soldiers to the mobile hospital. The off-road vehicle is a Frankenstein combination of a Soviet-designed GAZ truck chassis, an American Ford truck cab, and a custom-built armored cargo bay.
A metal grille protects the headlights of the Oleg Gubal mobile hospital.
Hossu says he has been overwhelmed by Romanians donating to his various fundraising projects for Ukraine's war effort, including pensioners who pledged 50 euros from their government stipends of 250 euros per month.
"I spoke to one old man and told him, 'Please don't do this, you need this money," Hossu recalls. "He told me, 'Don't take away my chance to be useful again in this world."
The air-conditioning unit and ladder at the rear of the vehicle
The fleet of armored vehicles is scheduled to leave Kyiv and drive toward the fighting in eastern Ukraine in early May.