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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for injured soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 units in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported because of the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”