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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital observe a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the earth. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

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

On one day recently, three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a stained dressing and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, 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 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”