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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending timber tunnel descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center look at a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the earth. It’s the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see few bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one afternoon recently, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching ground level. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said certain wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”