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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor displaying Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”