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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One sloping wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. 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 concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”