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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center look at a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

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

During one day recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause 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 unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”