Six Metres Below the Earth, a Secret Hospital Cares for Ukraine's Troops Injured by Russian Drones

Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

On one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

Holovashchenko, said 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 two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”