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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”