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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days 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 doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to build 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”