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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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 repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”