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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”