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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built 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 multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”