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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone must protect our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”