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

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

During one afternoon last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”