Six Meters Under the Earth, a Hidden Medical Facility Cares for Ukraine's Troops Wounded by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

This is Ukraine’s secret underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

On one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent 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 location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. 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 full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

Holovashchenko, said some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”