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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, 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 hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

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

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. This is the safest method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their position was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. A week following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in Lithuania, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of severely injured casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”