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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened 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 Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”