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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating injured troops in the eastern region.

On one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It 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 return to my unit. Someone must protect our country,” he said.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”