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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A descending wooden tunnel leads down to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a operating ward, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, drugs and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a screen. It shows the flight patterns of Russian surveillance UAVs as they zigzag in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second of its kind, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters below the ground. This is the safest way of delivering care to our wounded military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel safe,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 patients a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have devastating limb trauma necessitating amputations, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy first-person view (FPV) aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon recently, three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had torn a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Subsequently the enemy forces dropped a second explosive on him.” He continued: “Everything in the village is demolished. There are drones all around and casualties. Our side's and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his squad endured 43 days in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. The only way to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. A week following he was injured, he walked five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medical staff checked his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a set of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, stated a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with a head injury. “I was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been lost. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in Lithuania, he said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to fight shortly before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a stained dressing and treated his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my military group. Our forces has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and granular material placed above up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even multiple eight-kilogram explosive devices released by aerial means.

A major industrial group, which funded the construction, plans to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of Ukraine’s national security council and ex- military leader, the official, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company referred to the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented since Russia’s military offensive.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said some injured personnel had to wait hours or even days before they could be evacuated because of the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two critically ill casualties who came at the early hours. It was necessary to perform a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” How did he cope with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Orderlies wheeled Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked beneath a shrub. He and the two other military members were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for further treatment. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to greet the incoming patients. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”