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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One descending timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month 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 providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one day recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It 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 go back to my unit. Our forces has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty units in total. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”