🔗 Share this article

Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”