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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. A descending timber passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a screen displaying enemy kamikaze and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's secret below-ground hospital. This center began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground installation for caring for wounded soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. A week after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, stated a FPV aerial device ripped a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been killed. We face ongoing detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the back by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had a pair of severely injured casualties who came at 3am. I had to perform a double amputation on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”