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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. A descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital look at a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”