🔗 Share this article

Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” 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 must defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”