🔗 Share this article

Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse 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, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”