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Sparse trees hide the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

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

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one day last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil 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 explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”