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Sparse trees hide the entryway. A descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations 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. “We are 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (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. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar 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 military group. Someone must protect our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”