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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an underground medical center observe a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

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

On one day recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, said they would be “critically essential for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked under a shrub. He and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”