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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

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

During one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build 20 units in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”