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Sparse foliage hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center look at a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

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

On one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”