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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground hospital. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. It’s the safest method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle 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 light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, 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 recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of artillery struck 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 several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”