Six Metres Under Ground, a Hidden Medical Facility Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to build 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”