🔗 Share this article

Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located 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 below the earth. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

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

On one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”