A Full Metres Below the Earth, a Secret Medical Facility Cares for Ukraine's Troops Injured by Russian Drones

Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

On one day recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”