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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to build twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”