🔗 Share this article

Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”