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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to build 20 facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked under a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”