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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

On one day last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”