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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”