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Scrubby foliage conceal the entryway. One descending timber tunnel leads down to a brightly lit reception area. There is a surgery unit, outfitted with beds, cardiac monitors and breathing machines. Plus shelves stocked of healthcare supplies, medications and organized stacks of spare clothes. In a break area with a washing machine and hot water heater, physicians monitor a display. It shows the movements of enemy spy drones as they weave in the sky above.

Hospital staff at an subterranean hospital observe a monitor displaying enemy suicide and surveillance drones in the area.

This is the nation's secret below-ground medical facility. This center began operations in August and is the second such installation, located in eastern Ukraine not far from the combat zone and the city of a key location in Donetsk oblast. “We are six meters under the ground. This is the most secure way of delivering care to our injured soldiers. It also ensures healthcare workers safe,” stated the clinic’s surgeon, Maj the chief surgeon.

This medical station handles thirty to forty casualties a day. Cases differ widely. Some have catastrophic limb trauma necessitating surgical removal, or severe stomach wounds. Some patients can walk. Almost all are the casualties of Russian FPV aerial devices, which drop grenades with lethal precision. “Ninety per cent of our patients are from first-person view drones. We see minimal gunshot wounds. This is an era of unmanned aircraft and a new type of war,” the surgeon said.

Maj Oleksandr Holovashchenko at the subterranean facility for caring for wounded soldiers in the eastern region.

During one day recently, a group of three military members walked with difficulty into the hospital. The most lightly injured, 28-year-old one soldier, reported an first-person view drone explosion had ripped a small hole in his limb. “War is terrible. My comrade beside me, a fellow soldier, was fatally wounded,” he stated. “He fell down. Subsequently the enemy forces released a second grenade on him.” He continued: “All structures in the village is destroyed. We see drones everywhere and casualties. Our side's and the enemy's.”

Dvorskyi explained his unit endured 43 days in a forest area near the city, which Russia has been attempting to capture for many months. Sole access to get to their location was by walking. All supplies came by drone: food and water. A week after he was injured, he traveled 5km (about 3 miles), taking several hours, to where an military transport was able to evacuate him. Upon arrival, a medic assessed his vital signs. After treatment, a medical attendant provided him with fresh non-military attire: a T-shirt and a pair of pale jeans.

The soldier, 28, said a first-person view aerial device caused a small hole in his leg.

A different casualty, 38-year-old a serviceman, recounted a UAV explosion had resulted in concussion. “My position was in a dugout. Suddenly it went dark. I lost sensation any feeling or hear anything,” he explained. “I believe I was lucky to remain alive. A relative has been killed. We face continuous explosions.” A construction worker employed in a neighboring country, he said he had come back to Ukraine and enlisted to serve days before Vladimir Putin’s large-scale attack in early 2022.

Another military member, a serviceman, had been struck in the upper body. He expressed pain as medical staff laid him on a bed, removed a stained dressing and cleaned his two-day-old injury from fragments. Covered in a foil blanket, he used a mobile phone to ring his family member. “A fragment of mortar struck me. The cause was a deflected projectile. I’m OK,” he told her. What were his plans now? “To recover. This may require a few months. After that, to return to my military group. Someone has to protect our nation,” he affirmed.

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

Over the past years, enemy forces has consistently targeted hospitals, clinics, obstetric units and emergency vehicles. According to international monitors, 261 medical personnel have been killed in almost two thousand attacks. The underground facility is constructed from four steel bunkers, with wooden supports, soil and sand laid on top up to ground level. It can withstand direct hits from large-caliber projectiles and even three 8kg TNT charges dropped by aerial means.

A major steel and mining company, which funded the construction, intends to build twenty units in total. A senior official of the nation's security agency and ex- defence minister, Rustem Umerov, said they would be “vitally important for saving the survival of our military and supporting defenders on the frontline.” The company described the initiative as the “most ambitious and challenging” it had implemented after the enemy's invasion.

An example of the facility's operating theatres.

The surgeon, explained some wounded soldiers had to wait many hours or even days before they could be transported because of the danger of air assaults. “Our facility received two severely injured patients who came at the early hours. I had to carry out a double amputation on one of them. The soldier's bleeding control device had been on for such an extended period there was no other option.” What is his method with traumatic operations? “My career in healthcare for two decades. You have to concentrate,” he said.

Orderlies transported Mykolaichuk up the passage and into an emergency vehicle. The transport was stationed beneath a shrub. The patient and the two other military members were transferred to the urban center of a major city for additional medical care. The subterranean medical team took a break. The facility's ginger cat, the mascot, walked toward the entrance to await the next arrivals. “Our facility operates open around the clock,” the surgeon said. “It doesn’t stop.”