🔗 Share this article

Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center look at a monitor showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day last week, three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “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 a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”