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

Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One descending timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” 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 affirmed.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”