Six Metres Below Ground, a Hidden Medical Facility Treats Ukrainian Troops Injured by Russian Drones

Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One descending timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Welcome to the nation'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 a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the safest method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

On one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. 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 unit. Someone must protect our country,” he said.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”