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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader'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, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring 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 recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build 20 units in total. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”