Six Metres Under the Earth, a Secret Hospital Treats Ukrainian Soldiers Injured by Enemy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped 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, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”