Six Meters Below Ground, a Hidden Medical Facility Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Injured by Enemy Drones

Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the safest method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he said.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, explained some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”