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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. It’s the safest method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

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

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”