🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”