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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A descending wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second of its kind, 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. “We are six meters below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”