A Full Meters Below Ground, a Hidden Medical Facility Treats Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Russian Drones

Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

During one day recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. 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 foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”