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Sparse foliage conceal the entrance. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

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

During one day last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, stated a FPV drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Our forces must protect our country,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. According to international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, intends to build twenty units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured patients who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”