A Full Metres Below the Earth, a Secret Hospital Cares for Ukraine's Troops Wounded by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sparse trees hide the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”