🔗 Share this article

Sparse trees hide the entryway. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”