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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

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

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 any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”