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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

This is the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (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. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an first-person view drone explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

The soldier, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or hear anything,” he said. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to build twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”