Six Metres Below the Earth, a Secret Hospital Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sparse trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build twenty units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device 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 two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”