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

Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations 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 the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

During one day recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 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, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”