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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center look at a screen showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build 20 units in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He 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, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”