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Scrubby trees hide the entryway. One sloping timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of extra garments. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a screen showing Russian suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the earth. This is the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats thirty to forty patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few bullet injuries. This is an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a small hole in his leg. “War is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier said his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their position was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view drone ripped a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, Filipchuk noted he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of artillery hit me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Our forces has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to erect twenty facilities in all. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”