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

Sparse foliage hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”