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Sparse trees hide the entryway. A descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

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

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed 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 artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 units in total. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”