🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

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

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who arrived 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.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”