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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, heart rate sensors and breathing machines. And cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the region.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center began operations 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 earth. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps healthcare workers protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Major the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Certain individuals suffer from catastrophic leg injuries necessitating amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. Almost all are the victims of enemy FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a different kind of conflict,” the doctor said.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the underground facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon recently, a group of three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is horrific. The guy next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Subsequently the Russians released a another grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and bodies. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone close to the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was on foot. All supplies came by drone: rations and water. A week following he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medic assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a FPV drone ripped a minor injury in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “I was in a dugout. It suddenly became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been killed. There are ongoing detonations.” A builder employed in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to Ukraine and volunteered to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

A third soldier, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff placed him on a medical cot, removed a bloody dressing and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Wrapped in a foil blanket, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. My condition is stable,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, Russia has repeatedly attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and ambulances. Per international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It can withstand impacts from 152mm projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges released by drone.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to build 20 facilities in all. The head of Ukraine’s national security council and former defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting troops on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented since Russia’s invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured personnel had to wait hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of air assaults. “Our facility received two critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe operations? “My career in medicine for two decades. One must concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk through the tunnel and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed under a bush. He and the two other military members were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, the mascot, walked up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”