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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. A descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”