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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One descending wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the safest method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”