Six Meters Under the Earth, a Secret Medical Facility Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Injured by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One 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. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to build 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”