🔗 Share this article

Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a screen displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, a group of three military members 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 leg. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”