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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”