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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our armed forces 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.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”