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Sparse foliage hide the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a staff room with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground hospital. This center 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 six meters under the earth. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous explosions.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, plans to erect 20 units in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said some injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”