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

Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another 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 endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”