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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

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

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary 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 alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”