🔗 Share this article

Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to endure delays 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 patients who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”