🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 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 physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

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

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”