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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. And cabinets full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, doctors keep an eye on a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

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

Welcome to the nation's covert below-ground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the facility's lead doctor, Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station handles 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which drop explosives with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating injured soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day recently, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle 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 shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

The soldier, 28, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone must defend our nation,” he said.

Medical staff treat Taras Mykolaichuk, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, soil and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the construction, plans to erect 20 facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's security agency and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically essential for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “I’ve been medicine for 20 years. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported the soldier up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to greet the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko stated. “It doesn’t stop.”