A Full Meters Below the Earth, a Secret Hospital Treats Ukraine's Troops Wounded by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sparse foliage hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

During one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to build twenty units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”