🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

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

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”