Six Metres Below Ground, a Hidden Hospital Cares for Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sparse trees hide the entrance. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

During one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Someone has to protect our nation,” he said.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”