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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center observe a screen showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground 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 urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”