In kyiv (Ukraine).
In the middle of the Tytanovi rehabilitation center (“titans” in French), a t-shirt immediately attracts attention. We can read there, in the language of Molière: «2e foreign parachute regiment”. A former soldier in the Foreign Legion, Lucas joined the ranks of the Ukrainian army in 2024 after several operations in the Sahel (in Mali, Chad and the Central African Republic).
The 27-year-old, who sports a typical special forces “Omega” tattoo on his neck, wanted to enlist “by conviction” and to bring his combat experience to the Ukrainians. “I saw what (the) Wagner Group was capable of doing in Africa, that pushed me to join this conflict. I was injured in Zaporizhia (in the south-east of Ukraine, editor’s note)during an assault in January 2026. I am lucky to be treated here”assures the former French soldier, who had to have a leg amputated after an accident on the front line.
The specificity of this unique center in the world, opening in kyiv at the end of 2024, is to accommodate 150 former soldiers deprived of one or more limbs due to the war. Forty of them are housed there all year round, the others come on an outpatient basis. For these men, whose average age is around 35, it is proposed to experiment with so-called “intelligent” implants, in order to be able to walk on two legs again or use their fingers as before.
Laser sessions and titanium implants
In an isolated room, a blood-red laser beam tickles the scar of Denis, a 36-year-old patient, who had a leg and an arm amputated after receiving a shrapnel in the Donetsk region (eastern Ukraine). Stoic, this former soldier wears opaque protective glasses to avoid burning his retina. This session, led by a therapist, serves to soften the hardened skin around the scar that adorns his right shoulder.
“We have to wait until the wound is well healed before starting the laser sessions. The goal of this process is to improve healing and make the skin softer so that a titanium implant can be driven down to the bone.specifies Sven, the practitioner in charge of the session that day. Right next door, four colossi are being massaged to reactivate blood circulation in their freshly amputated limbs.
More than traditional prostheses, the Tytanovi center offers to fix a rod in the residual limb onto which the patient can screw a new arm, a prosthetic leg or even a new hand reacting directly to muscular contractions. Once attached, sensors integrated into the titanium act as transmitters of information between the body and the new bionic limb. This allows you to raise your arm or move your artificial fingers.
“If I wanted to live, I had to cut off my leg and my arm”
“I put on my leg, I untie my arm, I do what I want”exclaims Gleb Benia, in full demonstration. The young man benefited from this new type of operation in 2025, knowing that the country’s very first bionic prosthesis was placed on a veteran in May 2023. Like most of the cripples at the Tytanovi center, Gleb volunteered to defend his country against Russian troops after the invasion of February 2022.
Originally from the town of Kryvyï Rih (Dnipropetrovsk oblast, center of the country), the same town as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, he completed three weeks of military training in the United Kingdom before being deployed to the merciless trenches of Donbass. One night in December 2023, a Russian drone surprises him on a mission with three of his comrades. All died instantly, except Gleb, who managed to put tourniquets on his left leg and right arm, alone. For this inveterate fan of the trilogy Star Warshis survival prowess has nothing to envy of Luke Skywalker or Obi-Wan Kenobi. His good arm is entirely tattooed, in reference to the famous cinematographic saga created by George Lucas.
“Once the bleeding stopped, I managed to send my location to the medical team. After picking me up, the doctor at the stabilization point told me that if I wanted to live, they would have to cut off my leg and arm.remembers Gleb Benia. After the amputation, he woke up in Dnipro hospital, before being transferred to the Superhumans trauma clinic, located in Lviv, in the west of the country (near Poland).
Between these walls, he feels oppressed and cannot find the right fit. “Classic prostheses were uncomfortable, particularly hard plastic ones.he grimaces. They were falling off, I was sweating in them and I couldn’t walk for long!” During several weeks of medical wandering, depression stalked him, until the day a doctor told him about a “new technology”. Without a second thought, he called the director of the Tytanovi center, Vyacheslav Zaporozhets, who received him the following week. In total, Gleb has already undergone four operations to benefit from “smart” prostheses.
Psychological support and fun rehabilitation
Where conventional prostheses fail, titanium implants offer new hope for soldiers injured at the front. They allow the artificial arms to interact directly with the patient’s body thanks to myoelectricity, which captures information sent by the muscles in the form of electrical discharges, to transform the message into movement.
At the Tytanovi center, spaces are also dedicated to mental health, such as a psychological support room where patients can tame their phantom pain using artificial intelligence (AI) software. On a screen, they can see themselves, their amputated limb reconstructed in three dimensions (3D) and attached again to their body, which they can move in space in real time. A way of materializing pain despite its absence.
Finally, a space is dedicated to relaxation: chess games, gym and rest room, etc. All activities are done with carbon, titanium or aluminum limbs. “I’m rehabilitating my right hand and, at the same time, I’m chatting with my friends”says Ivan Lyubish-Kirdei, former photographer for the prestigious Reuters news agency, who suffered a Russian attack on August 24, 2024. While he was staying at the Sapphire hotel in the city of Kramatorsk (Donetsk oblast), an Iskander-M ballistic missile fell on the building. He was saved by a colleague, but he lost the use of his right eye. Like others, he is recovering in the center.
At the end of the morning, Vyacheslav, the center’s chief therapist, explains to us that bionic prostheses are only just beginning: “We will need adjustments to avoid infections which are more frequent than with traditional prostheses. Furthermore, it is today impossible to run with these prostheses, despite their high cost. Today it costs approximately between 80,000 and 100,000 euros for an artificial limb. In addition to the very high financial cost, there is a battery life that needs to be improved, which are limits that engineers around the world are now working on.
Massive use of these “smart” osseointegration limbs (the direct connection between living bone and an artificial implant) should allow scientists to improve their models empirically, including AI machine learning, which allows the machine to better understand the most frequent human movements. But a mammoth task awaits them: Ukraine already has nearly 120,000 war amputees, according to the broadest estimates.
