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Scrubby trees hide the entrance. One sloping timber passageway descends to a brightly lit welcome zone. There is a surgery unit, equipped with beds, heart rate sensors and ventilators. Plus shelves full of medical equipment, medications and organized stacks of extra garments. In a staff room with a laundry appliance and hot water heater, physicians monitor a screen. The screen reveals the flight patterns of enemy spy drones as they weave in the air above.

Hospital staff at an underground medical center look at a screen displaying enemy suicide and reconnaissance drones in the area.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. The facility began operations in the eighth month and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk oblast. “Our facility sits 6 metres below the earth. It’s the safest method of providing help to our wounded soldiers. It also ensures medical personnel protected,” said the facility's surgeon, Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko.

The stabilisation point handles thirty to forty patients a each day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma requiring surgical removal, or serious abdominal injuries. Others can walk. The vast majority are the victims of Russian FPV drones, which drop explosives with lethal accuracy. “90% of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. It’s an age of drones and a different kind of war,” the surgeon explained.

Major Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for treating wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day last week, three military members walked with difficulty into the facility. The least severely hurt, 28-year-old Artem Dvorskyi, said an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his leg. “Conflict is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he said. “He collapsed. Subsequently the Russians dropped a another explosive on him.” He added: “Everything in the village is demolished. We see drones all around and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

The soldier explained his squad endured over a month in a forest area near Pokrovsk, which Russia has been trying to seize since last year. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. Necessary provisions came by drone: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled five kilometers (roughly three miles), requiring several hours, to where an armoured vehicle was able to evacuate him. At the clinic, a medical staff checked his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant gave him new non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of light-colored denim trousers.

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, said 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 explained. “I think I was lucky to survive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker working in a neighboring country, Filipchuk said he had come back to his homeland and volunteered to serve days before the Russian leader's large-scale attack in February 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been hit in the back. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a medical cot, took off a bloody dressing and cleaned his recent injury from fragments. Wrapped in a thermal sheet, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A piece of artillery struck me. It was a ricochet. My condition is stable,” he informed her. What comes next for him? “To get better. That will take a several months. After that, to go back to my military group. Our forces must defend our nation,” he said.

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

Since 2022, enemy forces has consistently attacked medical centers, health facilities, maternity wards and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 health workers have been killed in almost 2,000 assaults. The underground facility is built from four steel bunkers, with timber beams, soil and sand laid on top up to the surface. It is designed to resist impacts from large-caliber projectiles and even three eight-kilogram explosive devices dropped by aerial means.

The Ukrainian steel and mining company, which funded the building, plans to build 20 facilities in total. The head of the nation's national security council and former defence minister, the official, said they would be “critically important for saving the survival of our military and assisting troops on the frontline.” The company referred to the project as the “largest-scale and demanding” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the centre’s operating theatres.

The surgeon, said some injured personnel had to endure delays hours or even days before they could be evacuated due to the threat 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 bleeding control device had been applied for such an extended period there was no other option.” How did he cope with severe operations? “I’ve been healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he remarked.

Medical assistants transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an ambulance. The transport was stationed beneath a bush. He and the two other soldiers were taken to the city of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean hospital staff paused for rest. The hospital’s ginger cat, Vasilevs, walked toward the doorway to await the incoming patients. “We are open 24 hours a day,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”