A Full Metres Under the Earth, a Secret Medical Facility Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

During one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”