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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. One descending wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center look at a monitor displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him 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 small hole in his leg.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must protect our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- defence minister, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said some injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”