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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A descending timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility opened 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 six meters below the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded personnel had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. He and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”