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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a screen showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with lethal 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 war,” the doctor said.

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

On one day last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”