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Scrubby foliage hide the entryway. A sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the safest way of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Major the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one day recently, a group of three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are drones everywhere and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a bed, took off a stained bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to protect our country,” he said.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to erect twenty units in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured soldiers had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”