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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center look at a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”