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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

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

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”