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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

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

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”