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Scrubby foliage hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen displaying Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility opened 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 six meters below the earth. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 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 dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. The cause was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone must protect our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”