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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical personnel at an underground hospital look at a monitor displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “We are 6 metres under the ground. This is the most secure way of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the casualties of Russian first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of war,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his squad spent over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. A week following he was hurt, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV aerial device caused a minor injury in his leg.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to survive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, Filipchuk noted he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he said.

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

Over the past years, Russia has consistently targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four reinforced shelters, with timber beams, earth and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which financed the construction, intends to erect 20 units in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for saving the survival of our armed forces and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had implemented after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded personnel had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the other soldiers were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded toward the doorway to await the next arrivals. “We are open around the clock,” the surgeon stated. “It doesn’t stop.”