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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. A descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades 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 doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

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

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”