Six Metres Below the Earth, a Hidden Hospital Treats Ukrainian Troops Injured by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

Holovashchenko, said some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”