🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital observe a screen displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”