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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from 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 method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

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

During one day last week, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to build 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”