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Scrubby trees conceal the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a screen showing enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility 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 the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating injured troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed 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 piece of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain injured personnel had to endure delays many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two severely injured patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “The work is continuous.”