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Sparse trees conceal the entryway. One sloping timber passageway leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of spare clothes. Within a break area with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors monitor a screen. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean hospital observe a screen showing Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground hospital. This center began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters under the earth. This is the safest method of providing help to our injured military personnel. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with deadly accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the doctor explained.

Major the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had ripped a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. My comrade beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: food and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he traveled 5km (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to a point where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh non-military attire: a shirt and a pair of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been lost. We face continuous detonations.” A builder employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to defend our country,” he said.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Over the past years, enemy forces has repeatedly targeted medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which financed the building, plans to build 20 facilities in total. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and ex- military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our armed forces and supporting troops on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's military offensive.

An example of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained some injured personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. You have to focus,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was parked beneath a bush. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the city of Dnipro for further treatment. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, padded toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”