🔗 Share this article

Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty units in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”