🔗 Share this article

Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece 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 several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”