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Sparse trees hide the entryway. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

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

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

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

During one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”