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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a screen showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground hospital. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres under the ground. It’s the most secure way of providing help to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe abdominal injuries. Some patients can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release grenades with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. This is an age of drones and a new type of war,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for caring for wounded troops in the eastern region.

On one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. We see drones all around and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. At the clinic, a medic assessed his vital signs. Following care, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

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

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to Ukraine and enlisted to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a bloody dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone 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 several months. Subsequently, to return to my unit. Someone has to defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Doctors treat the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the lives 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 Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who came 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? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates active around the clock,” Holovashchenko stated. “The work is continuous.”