A Full Meters Under Ground, a Hidden Hospital Cares for Ukraine's Soldiers Injured by Enemy Drones

Sparse foliage hide the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”