Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.
Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.
This is Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.
This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.
Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.
During one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”
The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, 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 jeans.
The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.
Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.
A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.
Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.
Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.
A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty units in total. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.
One of the facility's operating theatres.
Holovashchenko, said certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.
Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”
