A Full Metres Below the Earth, a Hidden Hospital Cares for Ukrainian Troops Injured by Enemy Drones

Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

During one day last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he said.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”