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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, 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 screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. This is the safest method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and water. A week following he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect 20 units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”