🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”