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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. A descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors 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 kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to reach their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”