🔗 Share this article

Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital look at a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”