🔗 Share this article

Sparse trees conceal the entrance. One sloping wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”