Six Metres Under Ground, a Hidden Hospital Cares for Ukraine's Troops Wounded by Russian Drones

Sparse trees hide the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build twenty units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”