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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves full of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert underground hospital. The facility 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 city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. This is the safest method of providing help to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Some patients can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with deadly precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone explosion had torn a minor wound in his leg. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. The only way to reach their location was on foot. All supplies came by drone: food and drinking water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 5km (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic checked his physical condition. Following care, a nurse provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

The soldier, twenty-eight, stated a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he said. “I believe I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old shrapnel wound. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, 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 back by a fragment of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has repeatedly targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and ambulances. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, plans to build twenty facilities in total. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for saving the lives of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the battlefront.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained some wounded soldiers had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who arrived at 3am. It was necessary to perform 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? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed under a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”