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Sparse trees hide the entrance. A sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build twenty units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”