🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A descending timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty 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 horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”