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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital look at a screen displaying Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert 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 not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

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

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty units in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. 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 toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”