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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One descending timber passageway descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground hospital look at a screen displaying Russian kamikaze and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the earth. This is the most secure way of providing help to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers protected,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating leg injuries requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop grenades with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

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

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a second explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been trying to seize for many months. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse gave him fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and volunteered to fight shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery hit me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

Doctors care for Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, the official, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to endure delays many hours or even days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground hospital staff took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are active around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”