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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an subterranean medical center observe a monitor showing enemy suicide and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's covert underground medical facility. The facility opened in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine close to the frontline and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded military personnel. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

This medical station treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which drop explosives with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

On one afternoon last week, a group of three military members limped into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an FPV explosion had torn a small hole in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another grenade on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit spent over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to reach their position was by walking. Necessary provisions arrived by drone: rations and water. Seven days following he was injured, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse gave him new civilian clothes: a T-shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, Filipchuk said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he used a cellphone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Someone must protect our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the dorsal area by a piece of mortar.

Since 2022, Russia has consistently targeted hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. Per human rights groups, 261 health workers have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is constructed from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, earth and sand placed above up to ground level. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to build 20 units in all. The head of the nation's security agency and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically essential for saving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “most ambitious and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained certain wounded soldiers had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “We had two critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. It was necessary to carry out a double amputation on one of them. His tourniquet had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “I’ve been medicine for two decades. One must focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants wheeled the soldier through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The transport was parked beneath a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”