🔗 Share this article

Sparse foliage hide the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

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

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. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”