A Full Meters Below the Earth, a Secret Medical Facility Cares for Ukraine's Troops Wounded by Russian Drones

Sparse trees hide the entryway. A sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

During one day recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad endured over a month in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to build twenty units in all. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”