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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert underground medical facility. The facility began operations 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 urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: rations and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of artillery 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 few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, plans to build twenty units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. The patient and the other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”