🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation 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 Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”