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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance drones in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the building, intends to build 20 units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some injured soldiers had to wait many 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 arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”