A Full Meters Below Ground, a Hidden Hospital Cares for Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Russian Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Sparse foliage hide the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

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 location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

The surgeon, explained some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to perform 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? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”