Six Metres Below Ground, a Secret Medical Facility Treats Ukrainian Troops Wounded by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A descending timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. 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 weave in the air above.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

During one day last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”