Six Metres Under the Earth, a Hidden Medical Facility Cares for Ukraine's Troops Injured by Enemy Drones

Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

During one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”