A Full Meters Below the Earth, a Hidden Medical Facility Cares for Ukraine's Troops Wounded by Enemy Drones

Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A sloping wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, intends to erect 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”