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Sparse foliage conceal the entryway. One sloping wooden passageway descends to a well-illuminated reception area. Inside lies a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a washing machine and kettle, doctors monitor a display. The screen reveals the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an underground hospital look at a monitor showing Russian suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's secret underground medical facility. This center opened in August and is the second such installation, situated in the eastern part of the country close to the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the ground. It’s the safest way of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” said the facility's surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point treats 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Certain individuals suffer from devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of Russian FPV drones, which release explosives with lethal accuracy. “Ninety per cent of our cases are from first-person view drones. We see few gunshot wounds. It’s an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

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

On one day recently, three soldiers limped into the facility. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old one soldier, said an first-person view drone blast had ripped a small hole in his leg. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, Vasyl, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He collapsed. Then the Russians released a another explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit endured over a month in a wooded zone near Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and drinking water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), requiring several hours, to where an military transport was able to pick him up. Upon arrival, a medic checked his physical condition. After treatment, a nurse provided him with new civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a FPV drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

Another patient, thirty-eight-year-old a serviceman, said a drone blast had resulted in a head injury. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face ongoing explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, he said he had returned to his homeland and enlisted to serve days before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his sister. “A fragment of artillery struck me. The cause was a ricochet. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To get better. This may require a few months. Subsequently, to return to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he affirmed.

Medical staff care for the wounded soldier, who was hit in the back by a fragment of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked hospitals, health facilities, obstetric units and ambulances. Per human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in almost 2,000 attacks. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from 152mm artillery shells and even multiple 8kg explosive devices released by drone.

A major industrial group, which funded the building, plans to erect 20 facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and former military leader, the official, declared they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the project as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had undertaken since Russia’s military offensive.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

The surgeon, explained some wounded personnel had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of aerial attacks. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who arrived at the early hours. I had to perform a removal of both limbs on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been on for so long there was no alternative.” What is his method with severe surgeries? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the tunnel and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was parked under a bush. The patient and the two other soldiers were taken to the urban center of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded toward the entrance to await the incoming patients. “We are active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”