Ukrainian medics face blasts, bloodshed in front-line hospitals

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Artillery thudded nearby one recent evening as medics rushed a soldier with blast wounds into a new type of Ukrainian field hospital buried underground. In the relative safety of their bunker, which lies under 10 feet of sandbags, earth, steel and pine logs, surgeon Yevhen Antoniuk and his team got to work.

After 30 minutes, they had stabilized the soldier and sent him farther from the front line for additional treatment. Antoniuk’s field hospital on the southern front is the first of 20 such underground medical facilities Ukraine plans to build to protect patients and staff from Russia’s military, which Kyiv says has targeted hospitals throughout this war. Its seven rooms, including two operating theaters, are packed with supplies and the latest medical technology, and can handle up to 100 patients a day.

Ukraine’s combat care has improved dramatically since Russia invaded, as medics adopt Western practices, such as a better division of labor and different drugs, and those drafted from civilian life get used to dealing with war casualties. The Ukrainian medical profession is also under strain. Critical positions are unfilled and staff face burnout after 2½ years of fighting.

Members of Antoniuk’s team have at times worked close to two weeks with less than three hours of sleep a day. Many in this close-knit team are haunted by one patient they couldn’t save—a member of their own crew who died in a Russian missile strike. “It is a different world in care" since 2022, said Antoniuk, who in addition to being a surgeon is also the underground hospital’s commander.