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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”