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

Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

During one day last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he said.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out 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 surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”