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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the ground. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one day recently, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”