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Scrubby trees conceal the entrance. A sloping timber tunnel descends to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of spare clothes. Within a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. It shows the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital look at a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

This is the nation's covert underground medical facility. This center opened in the eighth month and is the second of its kind, situated in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. It’s the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel safe,” said the clinic’s lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

On one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is horrific. The guy beside me, a fellow soldier, was killed,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second explosive on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is destroyed. There are drones all around and bodies. Ours and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and water. Seven days after he was hurt, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, said a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he noted he had returned to his homeland and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few 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 back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which financed the building, intends to build twenty facilities in all. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally essential for saving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The organization referred to the initiative as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at the early hours. I had to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been applied for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with severe surgeries? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a shrub. He and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, Vasilevs, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”