🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty units in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”