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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center look at a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”