Six Meters Under Ground, a Hidden Hospital Cares for Ukraine's Soldiers Wounded by Russian Drones

Scrubby trees hide the entrance. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave 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 urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk 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 struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred 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 placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”