🔗 Share this article

Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

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

On one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”