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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

This is Ukraine’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 combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

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

During one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their position was by walking. All supplies arrived by drone: rations and water. A week after he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder working in Lithuania, he said he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain injured soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for further treatment. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”