A Full Metres Under the Earth, a Secret Medical Facility Treats Ukrainian Troops Injured by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A sloping timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the most secure way of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

During one day last week, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he said.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”