🔗 Share this article

Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our patients 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 eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”