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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center observe a screen showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to build twenty units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”