🔗 Share this article

Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A descending timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled 5km (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 vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”