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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground hospital observe a monitor displaying Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “We are six meters below the ground. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

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

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”