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Sparse foliage hide the entryway. A descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”