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Scrubby foliage conceal the entrance. One descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to erect 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”