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Sparse trees hide the entrance. One descending wooden passageway descends to a brightly lit reception area. Inside lies a operating ward, equipped with beds, cardiac monitors and ventilators. Plus shelves stocked of medical equipment, medications and neat piles of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians monitor a screen. It shows the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the air above.

Medical staff at an underground medical center observe a monitor displaying Russian suicide and surveillance UAVs in the region.

Welcome to Ukraine’s secret below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country close to the frontline and the city of a key location in the Donetsk region. “Our facility sits six meters below the ground. It’s the most secure method of providing help to our injured soldiers. And it keeps medical personnel protected,” said the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles 30-40 casualties a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic leg injuries necessitating surgical removal, or severe abdominal injuries. Others can move on their own. The vast majority are the casualties of enemy FPV aerial devices, which drop explosives with deadly accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter few bullet injuries. It’s an age of drones and a new type of war,” the doctor said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean installation for caring for injured troops in the eastern region.

During one day last week, a group of three military members limped into the hospital. The least severely hurt, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, reported an FPV explosion had ripped a minor wound in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade next to me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He fell down. Then the Russians released a second explosive on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see UAVs everywhere and bodies. Our side's and theirs.”

The soldier said his squad spent 43 days in a forest area close to the city, which enemy forces has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to reach their position was on foot. All supplies arrived by drone: food and water. Seven days following he was hurt, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), requiring three hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with new non-military attire: a shirt and a set of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, 28, said a first-person view drone ripped a minor injury in his leg.

A different casualty, thirty-eight-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a UAV explosion had left him with concussion. “I was in a trench shelter. It suddenly went dark. I couldn’t feel anything or any sound,” he said. “I think I was fortunate to remain alive. A relative has been lost. There are continuous detonations.” A builder working in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before the Russian leader's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, Taras Mykolaichuk, had been hit in the back. He groaned as doctors placed him on a bed, removed a stained bandage and cleaned his recent shrapnel wound. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to call his sister. “A fragment of mortar hit me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What comes next for him? “To recover. That will take a few months. After that, to return to my unit. Someone has to protect our country,” he affirmed.

Doctors care for the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a piece of artillery shell.

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently targeted medical centers, clinics, obstetric units and ambulances. Per international monitors, over two hundred health workers have been killed in nearly two thousand assaults. The underground facility is built from multiple steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and granular material laid on top reaching ground level. It can withstand impacts from large-caliber artillery shells and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by drone.

The Ukrainian industrial group, which financed the building, intends to erect twenty units in all. The head of Ukraine’s security agency and former military leader, Rustem Umerov, declared they would be “vitally important for preserving the survival of our military and assisting defenders on the battlefront.” The company described the initiative as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, said certain wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even multiple days before they could be transported due to the danger of aerial attacks. “We had two severely injured patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. His tourniquet had been applied for so long there was no other option.” What is his method with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to focus,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The vehicle was stationed beneath a shrub. He and the two other soldiers were transferred to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The underground medical team paused for rest. The facility's orange feline, the mascot, padded up to the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” Holovashchenko said. “It doesn’t stop.”