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Sparse trees conceal the entrance. A sloping wooden passageway leads down to a well-illuminated reception area. There is a surgery unit, equipped with gurneys, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus cabinets stocked of medical equipment, drugs and neat piles of spare clothes. In a break area with a laundry appliance and kettle, physicians keep an eye on a display. The screen reveals the movements of Russian surveillance UAVs as they weave in the sky above.

Medical staff at an subterranean hospital look at a screen showing enemy suicide and surveillance UAVs in the area.

Welcome to the nation's secret below-ground hospital. The facility began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in the eastern part of the country not far from the frontline and the urban area of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are 6 metres below the ground. This is the most secure method of delivering care to our injured military personnel. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles 30-40 patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have devastating limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious stomach wounds. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of enemy FPV aerial devices, which release grenades with lethal accuracy. “90% of our cases are from FPVs. We encounter minimal bullet injuries. This is an age of unmanned aircraft and a new type of conflict,” the surgeon explained.

Maj the senior surgeon at the subterranean installation for treating wounded troops in the eastern region.

During one afternoon last week, three soldiers limped into the hospital. The most lightly injured, twenty-eight-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an FPV blast had torn a minor wound in his limb. “Conflict is terrible. The guy beside me, Vasyl, was killed,” he stated. “He fell down. Then the enemy forces released a another grenade on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Ours and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his unit endured 43 days in a wooded zone near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture since last year. The only way to reach their location was on foot. Necessary provisions came by quadcopter: rations and water. A week after he was hurt, he walked 5km (about 3 miles), taking three hours, to a point where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medical staff assessed his physical condition. Following care, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

Artem Dvorskiy, twenty-eight, said a first-person view aerial device caused a minor injury in his lower limb.

Another patient, 38-year-old Pavlo Filipchuk, recounted a drone blast had left him with concussion. “My position was in a trench shelter. Suddenly it became black. I lost sensation anything or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to survive. My cousin has been killed. There are continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to his homeland and enlisted to serve shortly before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the back. He expressed pain as doctors placed him on a medical cot, took off a bloody bandage and treated his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a thermal sheet, he borrowed a cellphone to ring his sister. “A fragment of mortar struck me. It was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To recover. This may require a several months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone has to defend our country,” he affirmed.

Medical staff treat the wounded soldier, who was injured in the dorsal area by a fragment of artillery shell.

Over the past years, Russia has consistently attacked hospitals, clinics, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to human rights groups, over two hundred medical personnel have been fatally attacked in nearly two thousand attacks. This subterranean hospital is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, earth and granular material placed above reaching the surface. It is designed to resist direct hits from 152mm projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to erect twenty facilities in total. A senior official of the nation's national security council and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “critically important for preserving the lives of our armed forces and supporting troops on the battlefront.” The organization described the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had undertaken since Russia’s invasion.

One of the facility's surgical rooms.

Holovashchenko, explained certain injured soldiers had to endure delays hours or even multiple days before they could be evacuated due to the threat of aerial attacks. “Our facility received two critically ill patients who came at 3am. I had to carry out a double amputation on a patient. The soldier's tourniquet had been applied for such an extended period there was no alternative.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for 20 years. One must focus,” he said.

Orderlies wheeled the soldier through the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. The patient and the other military members were taken to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The underground hospital staff took a break. The hospital’s ginger cat, the mascot, padded up to the doorway to greet the next arrivals. “Our facility operates active 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “The work is continuous.”