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Sparse trees hide the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit welcome zone. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the flight patterns of Russian spy drones as they zigzag in the sky above.

Medical personnel at an underground medical center observe a monitor showing Russian kamikaze and surveillance drones in the area.

This is Ukraine’s covert below-ground medical facility. The facility opened in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the combat zone and the urban area of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. It’s the most secure method of delivering care to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic leg injuries requiring surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with deadly precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter few bullet injuries. This is an era of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the underground installation for treating wounded troops in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, three military members limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV blast had ripped a minor wound in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He collapsed. Then the enemy forces dropped a second grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the settlement is destroyed. There are UAVs everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

The soldier explained his squad endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and drinking water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (roughly three miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to survive. My cousin has been lost. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the upper body. He groaned as doctors laid him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to go back to my unit. Our forces must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has repeatedly attacked medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from four reinforced shelters, with wooden supports, earth and sand placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, intends to erect 20 facilities in all. The head of the nation's security agency and ex- military leader, the official, said they would be “critically important for preserving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain injured personnel had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to carry out a removal of both limbs on a patient. His bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the other soldiers were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”