A Full Metres Below Ground, a Secret Medical Facility Cares for Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

During one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he said.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”