Six Metres Under the Earth, a Secret Medical Facility Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

During one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. 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. Our forces must defend our nation,” he said.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team 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. “It doesn’t stop.”