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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

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

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build twenty units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”