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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% 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 war,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at 3am. I had 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.” How did he cope with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”