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Sparse foliage hide the entrance. One sloping wooden tunnel descends to a well-illuminated welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, doctors keep an eye on a display. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical personnel at an subterranean medical center look at a monitor showing enemy kamikaze and reconnaissance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret underground medical facility. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, situated in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. This is the safest way of providing help to our wounded soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” stated the facility's lead doctor, Major the chief surgeon.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Their conditions vary. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring amputations, or severe stomach wounds. Others can walk. Almost all are the victims of Russian first-person view (FPV) drones, which release grenades with lethal precision. “90% of our cases are from first-person view drones. We encounter few gunshot wounds. This is an era of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean facility for caring for injured soldiers in eastern Ukraine.

During one afternoon last week, three soldiers walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old one soldier, said an FPV explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is horrific. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the Russians dropped a second grenade on him.” He added: “All structures in the settlement is demolished. We see drones all around and bodies. Ours and theirs.”

Dvorskyi said his unit spent 43 days in a forest area close to Pokrovsk, which enemy forces has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to reach their location was by walking. All supplies arrived by quadcopter: rations and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled five kilometers (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh civilian clothes: a shirt and a pair of light-colored jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone caused a small hole in his lower limb.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation any feeling or any sound,” he explained. “I think I was lucky to remain alive. My cousin has been killed. We face continuous detonations.” A construction worker working in Lithuania, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to fight days before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a cellphone to ring his sister. “A piece of mortar struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To get better. This may require a several months. Subsequently, to go back to my unit. Our forces must defend our country,” he affirmed.

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

Since 2022, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, 261 medical personnel have been killed in nearly 2,000 assaults. This subterranean hospital is built from multiple reinforced shelters, with timber beams, soil and sand placed above reaching the surface. It can withstand direct hits from 152mm artillery shells and even three 8kg explosive devices released by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build 20 units in total. The head of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our armed forces and assisting defenders on the frontline.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and challenging” it had undertaken after Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

The surgeon, said some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received a pair of critically ill casualties who came at 3am. It was necessary to carry out a removal of both limbs on one of them. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” How did he cope with traumatic surgeries? “My career in medicine for 20 years. One must concentrate,” he remarked.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The vehicle was stationed under a shrub. He and the two other military members were taken to the city of Dnipro for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s orange feline, Vasilevs, padded up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “We are active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “The work is continuous.”