Six Meters Below Ground, a Secret Medical Facility Cares for Ukraine's Troops Wounded by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles 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 Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he said.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”