Six Metres Below Ground, a Secret Hospital Cares for Ukrainian Troops Injured by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

During one day last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”